the problem with potatoes and soup
"i've been in sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots" — nora zeale hurston
Why write of potato soup when a sudden
scowl means the folly of blind jealousy?
Why praise what others lack? Perhaps someone
else will get these words flowing. But not me.
Not now. What is this line I am writing?
Please, let me commit no stupidity
today, great or small and let no huffing
ill wind make me pray. Since other's mercy
is just that: other's. Just like food: other's
that we all praise with parsley, cream and meat.
We who so causally praise without doubt,
with big fat words all about the splendors
of that common root everyone must eat.
The one I've never had to do without.