Wheel of Fortune

Secret Ingredient

I believe wholeheartedly in synchronicity.

I have been listening to an audio book "Secret Ingredients"....a huge 20-disc set that includes articles from the New Yorker on food, cooking, culinary pursuits.

I have been thinking that as food, both eating it and preparing it, and making poems are two of my passions and obsessions that perhaps I should more often combine the two. I've written a few things with food as the focus but there is such a rich mine of material that can be plumbed here. Many, many of my earliest and most enduring memories involve food, and I often recall trips and other pleasurable moments by recalling memories of meals or particular drinks.

Last night I was watching the TV program, Men in Trees...one of the few things I watch on the tube...and the title of the episode was "Secret Ingredient".....do I need to be knocked on the head or what?

So as we enter into the New Year I'm hoping to explore the connections of food and writing and find a focus in that direction....

Planning to start the New Year by bringing mimosas to work on Monday...perhaps with croissants, and moving on from there.

We are having dinner tonight with friends at a Persian bistro...many of the menu items feature pomegranates...and that has brought forth a bittersweet memory...



December

When my father was dying
he called for pomegranates
but could not eat their sweet pulp.
They lay on the sill, ripening,
rosy blooms against the sky.
He wanted to remember.
The empty hospital bed
stands stripped and disinfected,
the rotting pomegranates
have left a permanent stain
that cannot be washed away.


May you have a joyous Year!