“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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Jama's Alphabet Soup 