Sonnet About Biscuits and Bacon

or a Lenten Meditation on Being Soft

 

I’d find it hard to name a better smell

My great-great grandma's dough bowl and rolling pin. Sitting on my great-grandma's enamel kitchen table in front of my other great-grandmother's pie safe.

My great-great grandma’s dough bowl and rolling pin. Sitting on Great-Grandma Lillie’s enamel kitchen table in front of Great-Grandma Allie’s pie safe. There was a time when I foolishly distanced myself from my heritage, so to be the caretaker of these items now is precious. P.S. the runner hand-quilted by my sweet mother-in-law, Anita Klees.  www.thequiltladyandmore.com

Than biscuits baking. Take that back. Add

Some bacon in a cast iron skillet, well,

If that don’t turn the goodest vegan bad…

 

My mama gave my wife and me a dough

Bowl turned from wormy chestnut that belonged

To her great-grandma. Must have been, I know,

A lost-count number of biscuits kneaded, sing-songed

 

From wood-burn stove to table, farmers fed

Enough to strengthen them for hours more

Of bone-tired fieldwork. Grandma often said

“Y’all don’t know real work like we did before.”

 

My great-grandfarmers plowed the field ahead.

I reap their sowing, eat their daily bread.