grace

at the lakehouse over the fourth of july holiday, i read this peom by jake adam york in the editor's notes of southern living magazine.  not my first reading choice, as i had already read all of mom's us weekly's and people mags, but i ended up dog-earing this poem and a recipe or two.  this poem made me feel nostalgic (not sure if that's the right word but it's the only one i can think of that comes close).  i am proud to be southern and i love food, especially food prepared by my family and particularly if it's a recipe that generations of my family have enjoyed.  it made me proud that i make my great-uncle pete's old army pancake recipe for my boys every weekend.  it made me miss my mawmaw and want more than anything to hug her neck and taste her peach cobbler and fried chicken again.  it made me miss my pop who would use a slice of white bread as a utensil to sop the brown gravy from nanan's smothered chicken off of his plate.  it made me think of paw-paw to whom no meal is complete with out either a fresh sliced onion or tomato or both.  this poem got me.  i hope you like it, too.

Grace

Because my grandmother made me

the breakfast her mother made her,

when I crack the eggs, pat the butter

on the toast, and remember the bacon

to cast iron, to fork, to plate, to tongue,

my great grandmother moves my hands

to whisk, to spatula, to biscuit ring,

and I move her hands too, making

her mess, so the syllable of batter

I’ll find tomorrow beneath the fridge

and the strew of salt and oil are all

memorials, like the pan-fried chicken

that whistles in the grease in the voice

of my best friend’s grandmother

like a midnight mockingbird,

and the smoke from the grill

is the smell of my father coming home

from the furnace and the tang

of vinegar and char is the smell

of Birmingham, the smell

of coming home, of history, redolent

as the salt of black-and-white film

when I unwrap the sandwich

from the wax-paper the wax-paper

crackling like the cold grass

along the Selma to Montgomery road,

like the foil that held

Medgar’s last meal, a square of tin

that is just the ghost of that barbecue

I can imagine to my tongue

when I stand at the pit with my brother

and think of all the hands and mouths

and breaths of air that sharpened

this flavor and handed it down to us,

I feel all those hands inside

my hands when it’s time to spread

the table linen or lift a coffin rail

and when the smoke billows from the pit

I think of my uncle, I think of my uncle

rising, not falling, when I raise

the buttermilk and the cornmeal to the light

before giving them to the skillet

and sometimes I say the recipe

to the air and sometimes I say his name

or her name or her name

and sometimes I just set the table

because meals are memorials

that teach us how to move,

history moves in us as we raise

our voices and then our glasses

to pour a little out for those

who poured out everything for us,

we pour ourselves for them,

so they can eat again.

****
speaking of fourth of july and eating too much, we went to the lakehouse and had the most amazing time despite the jet-ski breaking down, a nasty wasp sting, rogue fireworks, and lake levels too low to get the boat out.  here's a peek:

how was your fourth?

xoxoxo,
coco