Writing and reading poetry, we are invited to join
with others in celebrating life — even the ordinary, daily pleasures.
Here Seattle poet and physician Peter Pereira offers a simple meal.
A Pot of Red Lentils
simmers on the kitchen stove. All afternoon dense kernels surrender to the fertile juices, their tender bellies swelling with delight.
In the yard we plant rhubarb, cauliflower, and artichokes, cupping wet earth over tubers, our labor the germ of later sustenance and renewal.
Across the field the sound of a baby crying as we carry in the last carrots, whorls of butter lettuce, a basket of red potatoes.
I want to remember us this way —
late September sun streaming through the window, bread loaves and golden bunches of grapes on the table, spoonfuls of hot soup rising to our lips, filling us with what endures.
Reprinted from Saying
the World, 2003, by permission of Copper
Canyon Press. Copyright © 2003 by Peter Pereira. This weekly column is
supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the
Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This column
does not accept unsolicited poetry.
This article appears in Apr 27 – May 3, 2006.
