It's a hot, slow day in Georgia, and I'm moving like sorghum syrup.
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| Photo by Melinda Stewart. |
Amy Ludwig VanDerwater is hosting Poetry Friday at The Poem Farm where you can read all about Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell's newest poetry book, You Just Wait. These two are always up to something new!
I was excited to find a copy of Jeannine Atkins' newest book, Finding Wonders, in my mailbox this week. Stop by Irene Latham's blog, Live Your Poem, for an excellent review.
I just finished reading House Arrest, a novel in verse by K.A. Holt, which I highly recommend. Check it out here.
I leave you with this poem of syrup and fond memories.
from "Maple Syrup"
by Donald Hall
Related Poem Content Details
Today
we take my grandfather’s last
quart of syrup
upstairs, holding it gingerly,
and we wash off twenty-five years
of dirt, and we pull
and pry the lid up, cutting the stiff,
dried rubber gasket, and dip our fingers
in, you and I both, and taste
the sweetness, you for the first time,
the sweetness preserved, of a dead man
in the kitchen he left
when his body slid
like anyone’s into the ground.
Read the rest here.
Goodness, what a poem! So much meat and story here, so many relationships and layers. Sweetness.
ReplyDeleteVery moving poem, when I first read it years ago and even now, still.
ReplyDeleteThis is a poem that takes me back to my own childhood, although the cellar had other things instead of syrup, blackberry and raspberry jam, all kinds of vegetables, and apple butter, nothing better! Beautiful, and thanks, Dori. "We walk
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on top of the piano at the farm" Love it!
Yum. You had me at SYRUP. (What a great word!! So sticky and slow!)
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful poem! Like Tabatha, I enjoyed the layers of time and relationships and the sweetness of shared syrup. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThis poem is new to me - thanks for sharing it! Especially those words "like anyone's." And the way they can't find his grave, but they find the syrup instead. Beautiful.
ReplyDeleteI loved your first line; moving like sorghum syrup. I don't even *know* what that stuff is - but I can imagine it!
ReplyDeleteHow beautiful....I'm from up north....the smells and feel of an old house, root celler, grandfather's collected relics. It all comes back. Thank you for the journey.
ReplyDeleteWow. Gorgeous. I am so intrigued by food prepared by those now gone. Thank you for this. I love syrup - we've made a bit here...but with it taking 40 gallons of sap to 1 gallon of syrup, we have not made much! xx
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