she gives you warm, but you want it hot
no wonder you end up living out of tins...

P-P

>From: garydawg <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: New:  Soup
>Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 16:43:46 -0800
>
>Soup
>
>Her kitchen always seemed
>a comfortable warm, whether in August
>swelter as she canned or midwinter,
>the oven stoked with cookies, pies
>and cakes for the holidays.  Even when I snuck
>in at 2:30, The Pour House closed,
>the room seemed to radiate warmth
>though stove and supper
>hours cold. When I stumbled up
>the back steps, I'd see the soup
>pot and instantly feel better,
>as content as a newborn
>feeding at his mother's teat.
>
>vegtable
>potato
>beef from left over pot roast
>chicken noodle
>corn
>clam
>oyster chowder
>ham and pea
>dumpling from a hen to old to lay
>tomato
>onion
>bean with cornbread and fried spuds
>
>Every Monday, the soup pot simmered
>a new soup, most often made
>from Sunday leftovers, comfort soups
>from recipes handed down
>by her mother and hers and hers
>back to the first Yankee
>who ever mixed a broth.  Nothing
>exotic or too full of spice,
>even minestrone basic pioneer fare
>with a hint of oregano.
>
>Never gumbo.  I asked her for gumbo
>once and she went on about how we
>couldn't grow okra in this wet weather
>and how I'd have to go all the way
>to Portland to get any decent enough to eat
>and how that was an all day trip if not more
>and.
>
>So I put gumbo out of mind, ate
>simple soups and relished
>in their comfort, a bottle of cayenne
>handy for when I hankered
>for a taste of home
>
>until the day
>no one stirred the pot
>no one turned on the stove
>no one cut up a roast
>no one plucked the feathers from an old hen -
>the kitchen cold
>uncomfortable in its chill.
>
>Today's soup
>Campbell's,
>the cayenne stored
>in the back of a cabinet
>near an old stove.
>
>January guest Nat at: http://gardawg.homestead.com/gardawg.html,
>
>Submissions: http://www.writershood.com/index.html
>
>Poets for Peace.  ¡Poemas sí, balas no!




Perpetua Pullman


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