HARVEST MOON

Tonight is the harvest moon
when the full moon rises early,
sits upright on the horizon,
bright as sun in lingering twilight.

Field hands grab a couple more hours –
cut, bundle, and sort the crops,
children tag after, search out the leavings,
nothing to waste.

It’s not labor to gather the gleanings,
cross the pasture, wash them for a neighbor,
waft the scent before hollow cheeks,
fill bare spaces with a harvest moon.

Click to hear the poet read the poem.

Cindy M. Buhl lives in Washington, D.C., where she is a member of the Writers Center. For over two decades she has worked in Congress as a foreign policy expert, with an intense focus on hunger, food security, nutrition, and agriculture. Her work has appeared in Spillway Magazine, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, Minerva Rising, NELLE, San Pedro River Review, District Lines, and elsewhere.

Yeast

This is for all
the things we start on,
hold like a ball of
unrisen dough
warm in our hands,
imagine the loaf
risen, baked,
glazed and golden,
sitting there on the table
ready to share
with others drawn
to the sweet, yeasty smell
of two friends succeeding
in putting away
against tomorrow’s hunger – one
sunny afternoon, two women
who pause
to stir together
the plain, ancient mix
of water, and grain
then draw from the air
where it always waits
the yeast, to join
with our kneading hands
to make this live –
this loaf we see so clearly
waiting to rise.

Seeds of Grace and the Hope of Harvest

I hold in my left hand
a past that was given a poor woman’s name, Hope,
she carries a child in her belly who will walk the earth
with only grains and rainwater to feed his body,
when the child is released to earth like crop and cornhusk,
he will feed the world through heart and hope,
his mother will place the earth in his hand,
his life will be a testiment of sacrifice and seeds.

And in each arm,
he will carry the prospect of hope and the pain of hunger,
he will weep for the unfed, and mourn the sick and dying,
he will examine the lives of those who holda field of crops
and livestock in their hand, food and water, and shelter
he will loosen the soil around the hearts that bury an answer
he will pray for each closed mind to open a harvest of hope
he will shake loose the trees to feed the poor,
sift through the fields for the compassion of strangers
to find a savior.

I hold in my right hand
a future that was given a rich woman’s name, Grace,
she grows the earth back green and finds a savior in the sun,
we are the ripened fruit of the shaken trees,
we are the hands that will plant the earth
before a child’s empty belly protudes,
before tears fall to hollow’s hunger,
we are the overgrown fields that will feed the famine,
we are the knotted past that will unknit
scarcity and deprivation by sewing seeds of Grace
and becoming the hope of the harvest.

Humble Pie

Whadda ya mean you don’t like that kind?
You little ingrate, what gives you the right?
Show some respect;
beggars can’t be choosers, my mother used to say.

You think this is some kinda restaurant?
a fast food place, a Timmie’s drive-thru?
May I offer you a menu, ma’am?
How about dessert? Hey, I got news for you –

there’s no happy meal here; no golden rule
says we gotta keep you fed - no prerequisite,
no extra credit;
we do it out of the goodness of our hearts.

In my day we didn’t expect to be fed at school
by god, we ate what was plunked
in front of us
and were grateful for it. We minded our manners

lip-synced grace; still, she reminded us nightly
to clean our plates, there were children
starving in Biafra.
She bets they would appreciate the hard work

and sacrifice to provide her kids wholesome balanced
homemade meals. We knew better than to ask
how stuffing our bellies
til we were full enough to puke, helped

the big-eyed kids Lotta Hitschmanova pitched
for on those dinner-hour TV PSAs for the USC.
Turn that damn thing off
my father used to yell
I’m trying to enjoy a meal here!

​And I’ll tell you what; we didn’t leave the table
til we’d eaten every bite. Even then we had to ask
to be excused
and it better be a ‘may I,’ or our just desserts
just might be a flying knuckle sandwich.

Click to hear the poet read the poem.

Since retiring in 2017, Brenda's immersion in family research inspired a collection of poetry based on her paternal ancestry. A proud member of the Edmonton Stroll of Poets and the Parkland Poet's Society, her work has been published in Canadian journals and anthologies. Brenda is completing a certificate in creative writing and is at work on a second collection of poems. ​

Say

where ever you are--here,
tonight, gazing across this

Malibu canyon--or there,
thirty-six years ago, sitting at

the kitchen table, your open face
reflected in the silver of cans

left over from a war, the wolf
in your belly already growling

for golden peach halves bobbing in
sweet syrup even as your uncle

took each round tin out of the box
and stacked them on your mother’s

table--say that even when you were
alone, later, in the dark kitchen,

shaking each to solve their mystery,
that even when you opened the one

you were sure held fruit and found
instead what you hated most--lumpy,

yellow, creamed corn--you ate it anyway--
say that in this moment so long gone

you see your life, each day peach gold
or corn yellow, nights devoured like

sugared plums or endured spoon
by spoon swallowing a black mush

salted with stars--say that this
is the best there is and so you’ll

have it--say it and eat it and say it
till there is nothing left to say.