Tuesday, November 2, 2021

a grandma's recipe


into the glass jar,

i assemble the shredded

red cabbage and pour

the brine


of spices & apple

cider vinegar

with sliced carrots & garlic

& finally

with summer's last bulb

of sunshine


i close the lid

on pickled condiment jar

until one cold autumn night-

we open and inhale its zesty

earthly flavor


on our plates of crumbling taco shells

& home-made soup of creamy 

butternut squash-

i taste home




Posted for dVerse Poetics - Concrete or Abstract, hosted by Ingrid.  The writing challenge:   I want you to write a poem using only concrete nouns, subject matter and imagery. For the purposes of this exercise, the following words are banned: soul, love, lust, dreams, sorrow, suffering, heartache, wonder, etc. 

Thanks for your comments and visits.

28 comments:

  1. This is gorgeously composed, Grace! So much to love here especially; "summer's last bulb of sunshine," and "plates of crumbling taco shells & home-made soup of creamy butternut squash." Yum! 💝💝

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  2. Excellent work on the prompt: I love all the flavours, and can almost taste your poem! Sometimes smells and tastes are the best reminders of home :-)

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  3. I love how much your prompt stayed on the concrete, and I could feel the anticipation of opening that jar, while remembering... great.

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  4. you could not get more concrete than this divine homemade recipe of a poem

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  5. Grace,
    You more than rose to the ocassion: a recipe and a taste of home!
    pax,
    dora

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  6. You took the abstraction of a memory and made it tangible.

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  7. Oh, this is delicious, Grace. I am enticed then enticed some more. A perfect meal for an autumn night <3

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  8. Great. Now I've drooled all over my keyboard. Thanks a bunch, Grace.
    Delicious delivery. Thanks.

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  9. I like how the recipe with "summer's last bulb of sunshine" can be stored and opened whenever we need to taste that warmth once more! 😋

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  10. wonderful in all respects...I can both taste and see it.

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  11. Oh YUM. What a perfectly delicious poem! Thank heaven we can use adjectives in our comments!

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  12. OMG my mouth is watering

    Happy Tuesday

    much❤love

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  13. The captured flavors. Oh, wonderful idea and now we each have a jar of a poem to open back up and enjoy in the winter months ahead.

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  14. What a delicious bit of writing Grace. As I write this, I am enticed by the aroma wafting from our kitchen tonight — pumpkin curry… homegrown and homemade.

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  15. A great poem Grace! I love the combination of ingredients you put into the fermenting jar. Sounds very tasty!

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  16. a poem as delicous as the contents of your jar.

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  17. Abstractions of "home" and "love" and "wonder" are all the relish of concoctions like this. How could an autumn night not have such savor, grounded in particulars like this, woven of place and time?

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  18. I cannot imagine a poem more ‘solid / concrete / mouth-watering’ than yours, Grace!

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  19. This is beautiful! I've been canning and baking childhood memories and tasting home.

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  20. I don't know how this could be any better Grace. Direct, sensual, emotions built into the images and objects invoked. I especially like the cohesion, how everything comes together and works to make the conclusion as delicious on our metaphorical palates as the condiment in the jar. There's indeed no place, and no taste, like home.

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  21. Sometimes the senses of taste and smell get short shrift, but few other senses can snap us straight back to a memory like they can.

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  22. yummy, yummy, yummy!

    -David [ben Alexander]

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  23. home,food and satisfaction ... doesn't get better than this!

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  24. "i taste home"

    i love that ending, and it will always taste unique to everyone, and so much more than just what going into the jar. i savored every word of it, well done.

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