Mangoes and Champagne

Time and Temperature

2012-11-25T08:36:00.003-05:00

Last year I was part of a poetry group on Sanibel Island. Each week we were to bring a new poem to share and to be critiqued. At times, the most difficult part for me was coming up with the idea -- but not the week I shared this poem. It happened (almost) just like this:

More Than Time and Temperature

I, looking for Twenty Techniques,

met a man in the cookbook aisle,

looking for validation.

We spoke

of poaching shrimp in butter

and searing meat

to hold its juices,

merits of roasting

poultry on low versus high,

buying directly from the farmer, and

"How can you know

if it's really organic?"

He told me

about salmon and a sauce

he makes with sun-dried tomatoes.

I told him

about yellow rice with saffron,

and the wine at Opus 32.

He handed me the book

I had been looking for.

I liked the way he stood,

and his salt and pepper hair.

He had a new idea

for how to cook

the turkey this year,

but he couldn't find

a recipe like it anywhere.

Then he said

his fiancé was a vegetarian,

but there are certain traditions

he just has to keep.

"Yes, I understand," I said.

And we looked at each other

just long enough

to know we both did.

by Carol Drummond

Even though some friends really liked this story-poem, I was too embarrassed and self-conscious to send Thanksgiving Day Chef a copy.What if the connection was just my imagination? What if the fiancé would take exception to...what would one call it? (Yes, we had exchanged e-mail addresses in the cookbook aisle! After all, I was to send him the exact name and address of a particular restaurant. He was to send me the results of his turkey experiment.)

But, my readers, this year I sent the poem. Two days went by without a response. I felt foolish. The third day went by, and then I forgot about it. On the fourth day -- an answer came! He said it "took him back to the moment," and he "especially liked the title and the last two stanzas."

It had not been my imagination!

He went on to tell me what his plan was for the method this year. He thanked me once more for the poem.

I'm sure we will not communicate with each other again. But the story, for me, has a happy ending. I hope it makes you smile.

Rarely Only What They Seem

2012-08-30T02:55:00.001-04:00

This morning for breakfast I ate a plum. Normally I would hold it in my hand, and take bites out of it till it's gone and throw away the seed without a thought. But for some reason, this time, I sliced it into a green glass bowl and ate it slowly with a fork. The skin was purple and slightly bitter. I thought all plums were red or purple throughout, but this one was golden on the inside and sweet and cold.

We think of watermelons as red, but they are green on the outside. We think of apples as red, but they are white on the inside. We think of bananas as yellow, but they are pale on the inside. We think of orange peel as orange, but it is white on the inside. And so on.

A few years ago I was having dinner at an Italian restaurant. A young, plain-looking woman without makeup, hair pulled back into a low ponytail, and dressed quite modestly, approached the table next to ours and began singing opera, beautifully. Everyone in the room fell silent, all eyes on her, caught in the magic of this unexpected moment. I remember thinking this person looked so ordinary. She didn't look like she could sing like that.

What? How easily we sometimes dismiss others. We never know about the stranger standing in front of us in line at the grocery store or sitting in the car next to us while stopped at a traffic light -- his talent, her abilities, his burdens, her struggles. A singer, a poet, a marksman, a water colorist, a person who speaks 5 languages, someone whose mother is dying, someone whose child won a scholarship, or has a loved one addicted to cocaine. Everybody has a story.

People, and things, are rarely only what they seem.

Just as this poem is not only about an old woman eating a plum.

To a Poor Old Woman

by William Carlos Williams

munching a plum on

the street a paper bag

of them in her hand

They taste good to her

They taste good

to her. They taste

good to her

You can see it by

the way she gives herself

to the one half

sucked out in her hand

Comforted

a solace of ripe plums

seeming to fill the air

They taste good to her

Out of the Storm

2012-08-21T07:23:00.001-04:00

Job 38-40

NIV

The Lord Speaks

38 Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:

²“Who is this that obscures my plans
with words without knowledge?
³Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.

⁴“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
⁵Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
⁶On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone —
⁷while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?

⁸“Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,
⁹when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,
¹⁰when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,
¹¹when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?

¹²“Have you ever given orders to the morning,
or shown the dawn its place,
¹³that it might take the earth by the edges
and shake the wicked out of it?
¹⁴The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;
its features stand out like those of a garment.
¹⁵The wicked are denied their light,
and their upraised arm is broken.

¹⁶“Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
¹⁷Have the gates of death been shown to you?
Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?
¹⁸Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?
Tell me, if you know all this.

¹⁹“What is the way to the abode of light?
And where does darkness reside?
²⁰Can you take them to their places?
Do you know the paths to their dwellings?
²¹Surely you know, for you were already born!
You have lived so many years!

²²“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow
or seen the storehouses of the hail,
²³which I reserve for times of trouble,
for days of war and battle?
²⁴What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed,
or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?
²⁵Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain,
and a path for the thunderstorm,
²⁶to water a land where no one lives,
an uninhabited desert,
²⁷to satisfy a desolate wasteland
and make it sprout with grass?
²⁸Does the rain have a father?
Who fathers the drops of dew?
²⁹From whose womb comes the ice?
Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens
³⁰when the waters become hard as stone,
when the surface of the deep is frozen?

³¹“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades?
Can you loosen Orion’s belt?
³²Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons
or lead out the Bear with its cubs?
³³Do you know the laws of the heavens?
Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?

³⁴“Can you raise your voice to the clouds
and cover yourself with a flood of water?
³⁵Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?
Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?
³⁶Who gives the ibis wisdom
or gives the rooster understanding?
³⁷Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?
Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens
³⁸when the dust becomes hard
and the clods of earth stick together?

³⁹“Do you hunt the prey for the lioness
and satisfy the hunger of the lions
⁴⁰when they crouch in their dens
or lie in wait in a thicket?
⁴¹Who provides food for the raven
when its young cry out to God
and wander about for lack of food?

39 “Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?
Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn?
²Do you count the months till they bear?
Do you know the time they give birth?
³They crouch down and bring forth their young;
their labor pains are ended.
⁴Their young thrive and grow strong in the wilds;
they leave and do not return.

⁵“Who let the wild donkey go free?
Who untied its ropes?
⁶I gave it the wasteland as its home,
the salt flats as its habitat.
⁷It laughs at the commotion in the town;
it does not hear a driver’s shout.
⁸It ranges the hills for its pasture
and searches for any green thing.

⁹“Will the wild ox consent to serve you?
Will it stay by your manger at night?
¹⁰Can you hold it to the furrow with a harness?
Will it till the valleys behind you?
¹¹Will you rely on it for its great strength?
Will you leave your heavy work to it?
¹²Can you trust it to haul in your grain
and bring it to your threshing floor?

¹³“The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully,
though they cannot compare
with the wings and feathers of the stork.
¹⁴She lays her eggs on the ground
and lets them warm in the sand,
¹⁵unmindful that a foot may crush them,
that some wild animal may trample them.
¹⁶She treats her young harshly, as if they were not hers;
she cares not that her labor was in vain,
¹⁷for God did not endow her with wisdom
or give her a share of good sense.
¹⁸Yet when she spreads her feathers to run,
she laughs at horse and rider.

¹⁹“Do you give the horse its strength
or clothe its neck with a flowing mane?
²⁰Do you make it leap like a locust,
striking terror with its proud snorting?
²¹It paws fiercely, rejoicing in its strength,
and charges into the fray.
²²It laughs at fear, afraid of nothing;
it does not shy away from the sword.
²³The quiver rattles against its side,
along with the flashing spear and lance.
²⁴In frenzied excitement it eats up the ground;
it cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds.
²⁵At the blast of the trumpet it snorts, ‘Aha!’
It catches the scent of battle from afar,
the shout of commanders and the battle cry.

²⁶“Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom
and spread its wings toward the south?
²⁷Does the eagle soar at your command
and build its nest on high?
²⁸It dwells on a cliff and stays there at night;
a rocky crag is its stronghold.
²⁹From there it looks for food;
its eyes detect it from afar.
³⁰Its young ones feast on blood,
and where the slain are, there it is.”

40 The Lord said to Job:

2 “Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct 
him? 