Lunch on my Own Time
Photo by Klaus Nielsen.
When I make my afternoon snack,
I see something in the flames
of our gas stove.
It hisses and whirs,
the flames, they dance up the pot
and they spell stories.
Ones like mine,
Of hunger and a meek tiredness.
Pity for the self, enough to fuel it.
The water in the pot rolls
like I think it might have
down a mountain stream
to fill the pot of an ancestor,
so long ago.
And as I drop the noodles into
that raging river,
I think that the wheat
is much the same
as the bread made over their smokey fire.
From plant to planter,
this wheat has moved.
Into their mouth,
through the stomach,
and into the muscles.
It nourishes. And from nourishment
they plant wheat.
So forth through time
until I have boiled my lunch.
So this afternoon,
there are more than two hands in the kitchen.
All who’ve come to sit for lunch.
