Pumpernickel

For those of you who don't already know, this is my favorite poem.

(Photograph supplied from this lovely website. Have a look!)



Monday mornings Grandma rose an hour early to make rye,

onion & challah, but it was pumpernickel she broke her hands for,

pumpernickel that demanded cornmeal, ripe caraway, mashed potatoes

& several Old Testament stories about patience & fortitude & for

which she cursed in five languages if it didn't pop out fat

as an apple-cheeked peasant bride. But bread, after all,

is only bread & who has time to fuss all day & end up

with a dead heart if it flops? Why bother? I'll tell you why.

For the moment when the steam curls off the black crust like a strip

Of pure sunlight & the hard oily flesh breaks open like a poem

Pulling out of its own stubborn complexity a single glistening truth

& who can help but wonder at the mystery of the human heart when you

hold a slice up to the light in all its absurd splendor & I tell you

we must risk everything for the raw recipe of our passion.

"Pumpernickel" by Philip Schultz, 1991

Happy Saturday, all.