Today I reserve

Today I reserve to praise
tapioca, the perfect composure
of uncooked pearls,

the unruly softness
of finished pudding;
such sweet
solace, enfolding.

Tomorrow is set aside
for mixed beans, the certainty
of their many forms

that yield willingly in
simmering broth,
finished with salt;
their reliable sustenance.

The day after I will
bow to coffee, its dark
warmth and encouragement;

the day after that,
to the delicate head
and golden body of beer,
its easy equanimity;

and each day thereafter,
praise at the altar of some
constant, inanimate thing

that held me
in fearless embrace

when the humans fled
all possible carriers
of their certain mortality,

and left me entirely
to what remained, the
small and faithful offerings

that nurtured,
that steadied,
that endured.

 

 

 

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Tags: beauty, constancy, courage, COVID, creative writing, fear, food, isolation, mortality, pandemic, poem, poetry, spirituality