two months and half a day later
we have three grocery sacks
filled with homemade breads,
a peach box filled with apple butter jars,
miniature bags of homemade candy
and an early Christmas gift
for everyone we know.
it could be more, it could be less.
sometimes i wonder if it will ever be enough.
my pies are filled with
fresh cranberries
Colorado apples
King Arthur flour
pastry cream
fresh chilled butter
sinful sugar
decadent chocolate
and perfect recipes.
i wish i could fill these pies with the
muscles i took to pound them
time it took to bake them
dishes piled up in the sink
farmers’ market filled with apples
bog where they harvested cranberries
with the
ache that fits in between the
layers of fruit and cream
the ache that won’t escape
from the lattice-topped steam.
it is recipe,
apple,
zucchini,
pumpkin
season.
the kitchen smells
like cinnamon
concocted with cream
and nutmeg, cloves
pungent with their
pinch in the pie,
spiced apple skins
and pumpkin shells
lining the counter tops
and floors,
sticky with sweetness,
sticky with sweat.
hours at the stove steaming
and prodding and pulling,
wafts of breads,
pumpkin glop,
pies perfectly rounded,
pot roast waiting
for the midday meal.
it is recipe,
apple,
pumpkin,
zucchini,
bread,
pie,
harvest
season.
this is just to say
i have taken all the money
from our account
in order to buy wholesome food
for our children
for us
for one week
and i wish
that the government
would subsidize health
rather than
corn, soybeans, and wheat
so that perhaps
for more than a week
we could know
just what we were putting
into our mouths,
our stomachs,
our lives.
Isabella
you still want to hold my hand
at the skate rink
though i know it won’t be long
before i’ll be remembering this day,
just as i now remember our first time here
when you stood in size eights
under the lights,
sashaying without moving your legs,
a two-year-old on a dancing mission,
and here you are now,
seven almost eight years old,
begging to skate with me
while we still have a moment
left of this afternoon,
this evening,
this moment of your life.
Mythili
the words of your imaginary worlds
have developed
into a complex combination
of English, Spanish,
and your own invented language.
you will still take
two toothpicks,
a doll head and a rubber band,
or, like today,
folded up pieces of cardboard,
and create stories
as intricate and imaginative as you.
but you are not the same
with your kindergarten knowledge,
your wealth of new friends,
your step out into
the world i know i can’t keep you from.
i will let you go,
but still listen
to your stories,
hoping that one day
you and I will both remember
who you were then,
who you are now.
Riona
it is year two
of you handing me apples to core,
of dumping in enough cinnamon
to fill the house with,
of squeezing lemons,
of tasting remnants of fruit.
i tell you,
Next year you’ll be in school
when I make applesauce,
and you answer,
I hope I go to my sisters’ school,
completely unaware of
the aching sadness in my voice,
of how much I will miss you here.
And I know that’s the way it
ought to be, I know it.
But knowing your innocence,
your focus on now,
is why I can’t control my ache
that grows and grows
just as I can’t control
how you grow and grow.
some shop for the latest fashion
some shop for gems and jewels
i shop for the gems and jewels
of harvest,
choosing with a critical eye
only the latest, greatest styles:
heirloom potatoes
that melt in my mouth like
smooth cream,
zucchini longer than my forearm
to be chopped and diced
and catapulted into recipes,
red bell peppers to top
hand-tossed, homemade pizza,
tomatoes perfectly plump
to sauce up our lives,
peaches for pies and jams,
carrots (cheap and easy)
to fill the girls’ lunch sacks,
and apples.
apples of every variety,
their taste carrying me through the year,
their travels from the
western slope
filling my bag, basket, bushel
until i work with them
two days straight,
coring, cutting, cooking, canning,
jars of applesauce, apple butter
making the house smell
like a cinnamon dream,
lined up on the shelf:
the shiniest, most fashionable
gems and jewels
of golden red
to decorate my style.
we could walk
but we prefer to ride
they hop in
with three pennies,
jubilant voices,
and a mission.
we arrive at the
perfectly painted plastic horse
covered in vinyl saddle
where they climb up and down
riding like pro cowgirls
when five minutes have passed
they head for the cookie aisle
where disappointment sits
plainly on the empty tray.
instead, we pack on our helmets
to continue our weekday adventure,
the wind blowing allergen-ridden dust,
remnants of summer’s sun
beating down on our backs.
i follow the oldest, who
weaves like a drunk driver
through the sidewalk,
into the street,
everywhere her heart takes her.
a giant, loud-mouthed dog
greets our arrival. we reach
with skinny arms into
the abundantly fat-with-fruit trees,
pulling down ripe green pears,
apples with red dimples.
the dog continues to carry on,
and just as i wonder if he’s here
as a warning for us to leave,
a woman’s voice calls over the fence,
“Take as many as you can.”
And we do, the tangy juice
of tiny homegrown fruits
sliding down the girls’ chins,
dripping into the pile at the bottom
of the trailer, sweetening
our end-of-summer afternoon,
sweetening our time here, now.
everything included:
the bikes,
the horse,
the absent cookie,
the fruit,
for three pennies,
jubilant children,
and a mission.
my eyes burn with such distaste
that i cannot even see the good in you
your inadequacies pile up
like a hot load of shit
after eating too many chiles
and i want to pick up giant chunks
of it and splatter them
all over your face
just because you think you’re God
of the computer world
does not mean that you have
to fuck over the good deed
that i attempted today.
you know who you are.
and if you expect to see
any more hundreds of dollars
coming out of my measly paycheck
to feed your ignorance,
you better find a way
to make it up to me.
It’s all about the trees. The easily climbable red maple in the front yard at the edge of the driveway, the giantess silver maple next to the house that shaded it all summer, whose branches could never in an eight-year-old’s wildest dreams be reached, the one that hung the tire swing for the whole neighborhood to play on. The two white pines along the back of the property that reached up to the heavens, saved me from having to mow under them, and never complained when we bolted plywood along an upper trunk to create a sap-induced tree house. The ginormous fir in the side yard that stood next to our ever-present volleyball/badminton net—yes, the one that swallowed up not only the birdies but then the rackets that we tried to knock them down with, and then even the basketball, until I would be forced to climb halfway up and retrieve our game. The three apple trees at the edge of the vegetable garden that made pies and tarts and applesauce that lasted all winter. Even the stump of the giant oak whose fertile remnants grew into a flower garden. These trees filled my childhood with their variety, their strength, their steadfastness.
Even now, years later, I cannot imagine my life without trees. As I look out my front window, I catch a glimpse of the silver maple shading our yard, peek out the back to see the two ashes that keep the grass from drying up, especially the one that Isabella already loves to climb and that holds the clothesline that we use all summer, and the small crab apple we planted ourselves after Riona’s birth, marking our family with another generation of trees that one day my children will always remember.
I opened my last jar of applesauce this morning. It may not seem like such an important event—I know what you’re thinking—you can go to Wal-mart and buy another jar for a dollar or less. But it wouldn’t be my homemade super-cinnamon sauce made from the organic Colorado-grown apples that I picked out ever so carefully from the Pearl Street farmers’ market. Grabbing a jar from the Wal-mart shelf will never bring to mind the beautiful bike ride through drifting autumn leaves, Riona in the trailer singing to her Barbie, a bike trail that eliminates all traffic and weaves its way through the city I love, and the arrival at the tented block that holds everything my heart desires. If I were rich, if I had all the money I ever wanted to spend, I would never buy a mansion or a Lamborghini—I think I just might spend it all, week after week, at the farmers’ market.
There you can buy almost everything you need. Fresh baked pies from the berries grown in the Wash Park community garden. Beef from eastern Colorado raised by ranchers who have replaced their corn with native prairie grasses, saving the earth, our health, and our economy with each delectable bite. Handcrafted soaps whose “factories” don’t require regulatory trips from the state environmental inspectors. In the spring, green onions, spinach and snow peas that crack when you snap them in half and can please any three-year-old who gets a taste handed to him from a basket in the arms of the farmer. In the summer, peaches and tomatoes that will fill in the absence of every meal and every remaining jar in the storage room. There will be peach cobbler, peach pie, peaches and ice cream, fresh peaches dripping juice down our chins. There will be tomato panini on fresh-baked homemade French bread, homemade sauce on homemade pizza, tomatoes to mix with the greens we bought today to make the salad that all the girls love.
And when the harvest really comes in, during the end-of-summer and early-fall months? We will stock up on winter squashes, filling our pantry with butternut and acorn and pumpkins that will make soups and stews and casseroles and pies that will fill our holiday tables with more than just warmth. They will complete a meal that would otherwise have forgotten its roots.
Any day of the market, you can buy Colorado wines, fresh-baked gourmet breads, hand-made pastas, even jewelry or candles. But what brings me there, what makes my heart yearn from week to week, is the crisp taste of the autumn air on my tongue that will soon linger with the crisp taste of a Swiss Gourmet, Jonathan, or Gala. I will eat them every day for months, I will cut them, chop them up in my processor, Riona will help pour the unmeasured insanity of cinnamon in, and we will remember the joys of this time, this life cycle of food, until the moment comes when the last jar is empty, and nothing can replace it but tears on my cheeks and a longing for fall.
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