Poetry Sunday

I really enjoy cooking, which makes it a happy coincidence that I also enjoy grocery shopping. I love going to farmers' markets, butcher shops, Penzey's Spices, supermarkets, and all the other places where you can find colorful displays of great ingredients waiting to be turned into something good to eat. Today's poem by Linda Pastan is full of great imagery of the marketplace ...

Market Day 

by Linda Pastan 

We have traveled all this way
to see the real France:
these trays of apricots and grapes spilled out
like semi-precious stones
for us to choose; a milky way
of cheeses whose names like planets
I forget; heraldic sole
displayed on ice, as if the fish
themselves had just escaped,
leaving their scaled armor behind.
There's nothing like this
anywhere, you say. And I see
Burnside Avenue in the Bronx, my mother
sending me for farmer cheese and lox:
the rounds of cheese grainy and white, pocked
like the surface of the moon;
the silken slices of smoked fish
lying in careful pleats; and always,
as here, sawdust under our feet
the color of sand brought in on pant cuffs
from Sunday at the beach.
Across the street on benches,
my grandparents lifted their faces
to the sun the way the blind turn
towards a familiar sound, speaking
another language I almost understand.

Have a good day. Enjoy the grocery shopping, which is one of life's little pleasures.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo