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
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