Odes on food and fortitude
apologies and gratitude to Pablo Neruda
Ode on Breakfast
Descendants of farmers
revere you
as the base of the sturdy
pyramid for
an honest day
Bacon, eggs, toast,
juices, in some localities,
flapjacks, grits
or scrapple, in others,
steaming porridge.
Like hunks of coal
shoveled into the boiler
you fuel
the body for labor
in the fields.
For lesser chores––
less coal.
Farm children
in the city grow
fat and coronary
on big breakfasts.
Daintier fare
will do for those
no longer plowing.
A whole-grain roll and juice,
perhaps some yogurt.
Granolas and flakes
of bulky bran
awash in non-fat milk
(Monty would twirl
in his grave).
Whether boiled, perked,
filtered, or expressed by steam
from imported hardware,
coffee is a cymbal crash
to awaken the spirit.
Some prefer teas
but they are not serious
about breakfast.
I could build
small altars
to record breakfast miracles:
pizza bianco
and peach jam in Pisa;
bland olives and fresh cheese
in Dubrovnik; a dawn
fresh baguette on a train
entering France;
watermelon juice
on an endless road
in Baja; cold porkchops,
huddled under a plane wing
in the jungle; my mother’s
biscuits and ham gravy
every Thursday.
Moderation may have set in,
half a bagel,
faux cream cheese,
a prune or two.
Even so, you
dear friend,
are the sacrament
for the world’s optimists
You get us up
and moving, you
pick us up and
makes us equal
to any task.
The world begins
with breakfast
Ode to Pasta
You curl, you coil,
you flow in ribbons,
you wrap in cozy pillows.
You are manifold
and generous
dear friend––
tube of any size,
ridged or smooth; a bow tie,
a shell, a capricious
hat shape,
navel of Venus, or
broad noodle
frolicking in sauce.
As an actor
of great discretion––
you enhance your fellows:
you calm tomato,
give substance to marrow,
vitalize drab spinach.
Hearty with flesh,
you are the equal
of the boldest meats,
the strongest herbs.
You play many parts––
carbonara, arrabiata,
puttanesca, primavera,
alfredo, ammuddicatta––
in some you are passive,
frankly allowing a sauce
to render you
a bit player, but you
readily step frontstage
at times to play
the lead as pale
bits of shellfish
languish, cheeselessly
in creamy
sleep, secure
in your arms.
Food of legend––
binds the Ara
of the heavens to
the earth-god garlic.
Saluté Marco Polo,
his gift from Cathay
will be praised eternally
in kitchens
we all know,
with due reverence
and gusto.
Ode to a Fifty-four Chevy BelAir in Havana
You are Rosinante,
eternal steed.
Plodding now
rather than charging,
you shine with
marbled layers
of rubbed Duco.
Once blue, then beige,
yellow as a bird.
Only seven owners,
all respectful except
the chickens
on the farm
back in ‘77.
You have taken
tobacco to the factory,
you have taxied,
jitneyed, carried contraband,
brought families
to the beach. Once
you carried a rich
politico to the airport
in time to escape
to Miami, but only once.
The engine, tended
with genius,
burbles with
the velveted voice
of an old cigarette smoker.
A local vulcan,
pounding in an alley,
performed miracles
on axles and springs.
His improvisation
is the folk medicine
that enchants carburertors
and heals clutches.
He has called magnetoes
back from the dead.
Myths of obsolescence
collapse in the face
of your long
and noble life.
On a sidestreet
with others of the tribe
your impudence upsets
the Yankee agenda,
and, as long
as you can respond
to the clarion grind
of the starter,
the human spirit
will carry on
driven by your eight
pampered cylinders.
Ode to the Tomato Patch
The great round red deity
smiled on us
in the year 2004.
The vines were lush,
coiled, waiting
for their ration
of coastal sunshine.
The fruit comes
in a rush,
in basketloads.
Salads glow sweet
acidic red, basil
sprinkles for the nose,
emulsive olive oil
puddles with
black balsamic
for a marriage
made in Eden.
The kitchen,
now a charnel house
of pulp and juice,
becomes headquarters
for ingenious
ways to deal
with plentitude.
Bruschetta every other meal
Sauces for the freezer,
chutneys, and packets
dried for midwinter.
No friend is allowed
to leave the house
without a few.
The earth tips
two more degrees
and one morning
the soul slips
from the vines
they curl––gray-blue
and yellow overtake
the vital green.
The fruit blotches
like a model
of some alien moon.
We cull and pick
and suddenly think
ahead to flavorless
winter specimens
coming to market.
The last gaspers
detached and solitary
sit ripening
in a south facing
window, whiling
away their time
like graduates
waiting to march.
The Class of 2004
will be looked
back on fondly
on chilly nights to come.
Ode to Fernet Branca®
You are black,
as petroleum.
You startled me
years ago, when friends
poured me a small glass.
“You are going to Italy.
Drink this,
it is like Italy.”
They laughed at
my astonished,
puckered face.
Family recipe
since 1886.
Over 40 herbs:
elderflower, aloe, gentian,
chamomile, saffron,
myrrh, St. John’s wort.
Secret bitters
from darker swamps,
blossoms picked by maidens,
Spices, aromatics,
hidden riches of ancient trade.
All gentled by the generous
soul of sugar.
Quaffed at midday
by old falsetto men
in suits like iron…
revives the liver;
dosed into five year olds…
wards off the grippe;
sipped by elites
to tune the palette
for white truffles.
Adding blackness
to black espresso,
it caps an evening…
readies the stomach
for sleep.
Delicious with seltzer,
in elaborate cocktails
and goes famously
(it is said)
with Coca-Cola.
I have long been
an addict to your bitter
magic, find you
make peace with
a large meal better
than any patented
cure. I once ordered
an after supper
drop in Costa Rica,
the bartender
refused, saying,
“Sorry senor,
this bottle is reserved
for sole enjoymment
of the owner.”
You are like that,
jealous and special.
So mysterious,
so capriciously
selective in those
you will permit
to love you.