She Should Know Who Her Father Is

Heart of Spring. I’ve gotten ahold of asparagus, strawberries, rhubarb, mulberries, morels, lambs quarters, cress, brassicas, bamboo shoots, soft shell crab…

     I’ve paused here. Closed my eyes. Slowly rub my palm and fingers down my forehead and face and beard. I’ve been yearning for gentleness and I think yes it is difficult to achieve in my regular hours going to and fro—I wish to achieve it there above all—but there is quiet and softness in the gestures behind the counter. And I’m always trying to achieve that more deeply. The growing season brings a gentleness… there is violence in our survival that I do not enjoy…

     What a pleasure it may have been sometime in 1846 sitting on a tree stump next to Thoreau as he baked bread in the coals of the campfire and said:

     “I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race in its gradual improvement, to leave off the eating of animals.”

     I feel the wonderful fruits of the earth talking with me. Though there is no need to reconcile this with my serving of meat… in any sort of ideological way… I think my cuisine is my pursuit of spiritual harmony. And Sassafras… a place of quiet and humble control… there are few surprises in my environment there. The world beyond it is filled with surprises. They test me. They judge me. They find me wanting. I am at my best in my little restaurant on the hill… with a cup of tea and pen… gentle knife strokes against stone.

Post Script:

Who Is Called...
I’m imploding suffering gasping clawing
Forced separation from the temple
What temple? O my soul!
That which preceded me.
I don’t believe in “God”
But I’ll say my Our Fathers
I’ll pray the Nicene Creed
I’ll Hail my Marys
I’ll enshroud myself with rosary beads
Surround myself in saints
I am also reaching
Reaching suffering gasping clawing
Grasping
So I give in: This then is how you should pray:
Our Father in heaven
Hallowed be your name
Your Kingdom come
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven
Give us today our daily bread
And forgive us our debts
As we also have forgiven our debtors
And lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from the evil one*

I’m not telling her what is beautiful.
I’m telling her what I think is beautiful.
She should know who her father is.

The idea of floating floating like prayer
Or poetry, abstraction never touching the ground
Why should life make sense,
When it doesn’t?
Through swaying loblolly pines: Scent of salt and
Honey Suckle

What does it mean to be avant garde?
Most people say it means to shock
But I don’t think so.
You just fill it with spirituality
That is the way…
It ends with them shocked more

That cruel, ancient serpent, who is called the
Devil or Satan who seduces the world
Was cast into the abyss with his angels**

*(Matthew 6:9-13 New International Version)

**(The Raccolta, Prayer to St. Michael)