“Sometimes, love looks like small things.” ~ Tracy K. Smith

I’m a big fan of James Crews’s poetry anthologies and often dip into them whenever I need a calming moment of reflection or a fresh dose of inspiration.

His third and most recent book, The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace & Renewal (Storey Publishing, 2023), contains some especially delectable food-related poems, two of which I’m sharing today.

Both poets pay homage to their Italian grandmothers, recalling childhood memories that continue to sustain and nourish.

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THE LESSON 
by Paola Bruni

On Sundays, Grandmother alight on the altar
of making and I, only old enough to kneel
on a wooden chair beside her, watched.
From the cupboard, she unearthed a dusky
pastry board, flour formed into a heaping crater,
the center hollowed. Eggs, white as doves. Salt.
Cup of milk, fragrant and simple. No spatula.
No bowl or mixer. Just a pastry board
and Grandmother's naked, calcified fingers
proclaiming each ingredient into the next.
She murmured into the composition
until the dough fattened, perspired, grew
under her ravenous eye. A rolling pin
to create a still, quiet surface. Then, the point
of a sharp knife chiseling flags of wide golden noodles.
For days, the fettuccini draped from wooden 
clothing racks in her bedroom under the scrutiny
of Jesus and his Mother. Mornings, I slipped
into Grandmother's bed, dreamt about eating noodles
swathed in butter and the sauce of a hundred
ripe tomatoes roasted on the fire.

~ from The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace and Renewal, edited by James Crews (Storey Publishing, 2023).

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ASK ME
by Susan Gleason

Ask me for the measure of starter and water
in a loaf of sourdough bread.
How to gently pull the dough across the
surface of a marble slab,
folding it like an envelope
so that the gluten strengthens slowly
and with intention.

Ask me how those loaves of sourdough
kept my hands steady
and my mind occupied
on days that fear and anxiety
rose as exponentially as the starter.

Ask me about my grandmother’s kitchen.
The sound of onions sizzling in a cast iron skillet,
the smell of garlic, the shape of her hands
chopping vegetables, teasing pie crust over a heap
of cinnamon soaked apples.

Ask me about candles on countertops,
how she lit those candles daily and prayed
to patron saints, the depth of her faith reflected
in the whisper-thin pages of her prayer book
and the seven children she raised in the midst
of The Great Depression.

Ask me about the sound of her voice praying
the rosary in Italian and how that became
a lullaby singing me to sleep.
Ask me about breakfast in her home,
thick slabs of toasted bread slathered
with cinnamon butter and smiles.

Ask me about my grandfather’s breakfast –
the crunch of cornflakes, the tap, tap, tap of spoon
on the delicate shell of a soft-boiled egg.
How he swirled the remaining milk in the bowl
with the last drop of thick, dark coffee from his cup.
And, if my memory serves me here, a shot of whiskey
to warm his belly for a day digging ditches,
the price he paid to live in America.

Ask about the garden out back, how in summer months
it resembles the one my grandfather tended —
sun ripened tomatoes, basil and beans.
How every morsel in my kitchen, from the
sourdough loaves to the simmer of tomato sauce,
is the love language of my grandmother’s hands.

~ from The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace and Renewal, edited by James Crews (Storey Publishing, 2023).

 

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Both these poems celebrate the singular bond between grandparent and grandchild. Intimate time spent together in the kitchen, as recipes and cooking techniques are passed down, is a cherished gift Susan Gleason describes as “the love language of my grandmother’s hands.”

In “The Lesson,” Bruni’s child persona watches in awe as she notes every step and detail of Grandmother making pasta. Just think of it: without a spatula, bowl or mixer, she can transform flour, eggs, salt and milk into a dynamic dough with just her bare hands and a dusky pastry board. Then, with a simple rolling pin and sharp knife, she creates “flags of wide golden noodles”! The alchemy of cooking is pure magic.

It is also a meditative, holy endeavor — a Sunday remembered, “Grandmother alight on the altar of making, the child kneeling on a chair, and later the fettuccini drying on a wooden clothes rack scrutinized by Jesus and his Mother.

Gleason describes breakfasts with her grandparents not only with a sense of wonder but a decided reverence, as she also juxtaposes food with her grandmother’s steadfast faith: lit candles on countertops, the praying of her rosary in Italian like a lullaby singing her to sleep. The mindful practices of her grandmother chopping vegetables or rolling a pie crust, as well as her grandfather tap tap tapping the shell of his soft-boiled egg evidence the sacred in the everyday. She would later find solace in her own bread making.

Here are grandmothers preparing food with love and intention, carefully observed by children who internalize the value of slowing down to make something from scratch. They remember feeling safe and comforted, and grow up to be poets able to view the world through a child’s eyes. Using words as their ingredients, they craft heart poems from scratch.

In her Foreword to this book, Nikita Gill says:

My grandmother once told me that where there is wonder, there also lives poetry. She told me this on a golden spring day at her home in the countryside while we finally picked the ruby-red strawberries she had planted months ago. She held one up to the dazzling Indian sun and said, “To a poet, even a little strawberry like this is a poem.”

Mary Oliver reminded us to be astonished by the world, while Irene Latham encourages us to “live your poem.” We can all do this, one small thing at a time. What could be better than that?

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THE WONDER OF SMALL THINGS: Poems of Peace & Renewal
edited by James Crews
forward by Nikita Gill
published by Storey Publishing, (September 2022)
Poetry Anthology, 224 pp.

♥️ To read my post featuring a sample poem from Crews’s second anthology, The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection and Joy (2022), click here.

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Lovely and talented Linda Mitchell is hosting the Roundup at A Word Edgewise. Zip on over to check out the full menu of poetic goodness being served up around the blogosphere this week. Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers, grandmothers, and female nurturers. Enjoy the weekend!

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