Bread & Poetry~ week of September 19th to September 25th

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Mistaken Identity by Tony Hoagland I thought I saw my mother in the lesbian bar with a salt gray crew cut, a nose stud and a tattoo of a parrot on her arm. She was sitting at a corner table, leaning forward to ignite, on someone’s match, one of those low-tar things she used to smoke, and she looked happy to be alive again after her long marriage to other people’s needs, her twenty-year stint as Sisyphus, struggling to push a blue Ford station wagon full of screaming kids up a mountainside of groceries. My friend Debra had brought … Read more

Bread & Poetry~ week of September 12th to September 18th

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Button by Jane Hirshfield It likes both to enter and to leave, actions it seems to feel as a kind of hide-and-seek. It knows nothing of what the cloth believes of its magus-like powers. If fastening and unfastening are its nature, it doesn’t care about its nature. It likes the caress of two fingers against its slightly thickened edges. It likes the scent and heat of the proximate body. The exhilaration of the washing is its wild pleasure. Amoralist, sensualist, dependent of cotton thread, its sleep is curled like a cat to a patch of sun, calico and round. … Read more

What is Mama Bread?

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In my house, we call it Mama bread. My daughter started it, her sleepy melodious pitch answering to my morning requests as she ambled down the stairs. “I’ll have some mama bread.” It came into our lexicon without any signal or flourish. It was just there, acting between us, moving in like a trusted member of the family that we could rely on for both strength and happiness. Mama bread. For most of recorded history what we came to know as Mama bread was simply called bread. Flour, water, salt, magic… Magic. Otherwise known as microbes…which is fine by … Read more

Bread & Poetry~ Week of September 5th to 11th

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The Tree by Ezra Pound I stood still and was a tree amid the wood, Knowing the truth of things unseen before; Of Daphne and the laurel bow And that god-feasting couple old that grew elm-oak amid the wold. ‘Twas not until the gods had been Kindly entreated, and been brought within Unto the hearth of their heart’s home That they might do this wonder thing; Nathless I have been a tree amid the wood And many a new thing understood That was rank folly to my head before.     Seeded Spelt Mama Bread Spelt is an ancient … Read more

Bread & Poetry~ Week of August 29th to September 4th

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I Will Keep Broken Things by Alice Walker I will keep Broken Things: The big clay Pot With raised Iguanas Chasing Their Tails; Two Of their Wise Heads Sheared Off; I will keep Broken things: The old Slave Market Basket Brought To my Door By Mississippi A jagged Hole Gouged In its sturdy Dark Oak Side. I will keep Broken things: The memory Of Those Long Delicious Night Swims With You; I will keep Broken things: In my house There Remains An Honored Shelf On which I will Keep Broken Things. Their beauty Is They Need Not Ever Be … Read more

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