Poem by Buffy Aakaash

Slow Food
for Sandor Katz

In the age of modern miracles:
Frozen logs of plastic-wrapped dough
make perfect cookies in minutes.
You give your spouse the extra time
to bring home the bread,
the wheat, the staff of life,
modified for convenience
in the company lab.
It’s food on the table,
once you’ve paid the gas
and pinched the moment
in a microwave,
lending more minutes
to your dual income
for delicious splendor
in fractions of the moment.
 
But ancient wisdom says:
Food for the soul takes
a good spell in the kitchen to make
a little sweetness in your life,
to bake a proper loaf you might need
patience for the yeast in the air
to make love in your dough,
give it rise, punch it down,
kneed it with your arms,
place it in your womb,
the oven of your ardor – a creation
from the mountain of earth,
the straw from your fields
and rocks from the river,
in the fire you made with your own hands
from the wood the trees gave you
in the last big storm.

Buffy Aakaash grew up queer in the hills and lakes of New Jersey west of New York City. His work is published in The Poet Magazine, Oberon, Iris Literary Journal, Write Launch, Main Street Rag, and others. He lives, travels and moves about with his dog, Bodhi.

---