Food for the Soul - 12/4/08

Poem: "Broth," by Richard Foerster, from Trillium (Boa Editions).

Broth
Some days we cannot help
but stand, chilled to the marrow,
and so let the water brim
with whatever bits we find at hand,
then ease into the kettle the wrecked keel
of a chicken—how like an alchemist
anyone intent on making soup.

The onion, halved then quartered,
separates into a lifetime
of crescent moons, and the carrot's
bright disks float like so many risings
gathered into a single day. Precise,
but not precise. It's not so much practice
as instinct to know that six

peppercorns are enough to pique
the senses, or that a trickle
of salt, rolled from the palm, honors
the one that bore us and will swallow
us again. Somehow we learn
that the parsley must be bitter
as the earth after Eden and one smatter

of thyme is enough to soothe the soul.
We do not think twice about adding
the bay leaf with its tincture of poison.
When we ache, we'll gladly shiver
to stir the broth, then sip, trusting
in the delicate balance of the common-
place to exact the cure.