Broccoli


Every gift, every experience, is either like a Stalk or like a Floweret.  Let me explain. 
    There was, and is, in Canbury, Virginia, a school for girls—Canbury Hall,

which I attended in the fifties. Its Rector then was Reverend Doctor Edmund 
    Radley, recently ordained, in accord with the requirement 

that our Headmaster be a minister, and his affinity 
    for the embroidered vestments often worn in his profession. 

We girls had regular reminders of our Christian mission. Throughout
    the Lenten season, no iced desserts were served 

in the common dining room. Our deprivation, we were told, would be a boon                                     to hungry people, especially Chinese children. 

We suffered nobly, though I wondered how gallons of ice cream would stay frozen
    on a long journey to the Orient.

        *    *    *    *    *    *

Every day, we went to Vespers in the chapel where we sang a hymn and recited 
    the Our Father led by Dr. Radley, beautifully embroidered.

His eyes beamed down on our ripening adolescence as he spoke briefly
    on the Vices and Virtues.  One time, his theme  

was broccoli at the dining tables, each one seating seven students and a member 
    of the faculty.  

A man or woman of color brought a dish to the teacher, who helped herself     
    and passed it to her left. Dr. Radley, in his homily, 

said several  students had alleged that, if the food was broccoli, the seventh  was left
    with stalks alone, denuded and deflowered 

by her own friends—whose Gluttony and lack of Charity he urged them to amend
    in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.  

Amen.





Squash 


If I had a garden, I’d look forward to the season when blossoms—flimsy, orange, tinged
    with green—lay hidden

in the labyrinth of my zucchini vine, because I am not fond of zucchini 
    or any squash, even the yellow patty pan I used to sauté for my mother,

and if I harvested the flowers before they fruited, I would not be burdened 
    with superfluous zucchini, or with recipes 

for a bread I make, but not because I like it. I’d pick the flowers,
     and as I ate them delicately fried, Italian-style,

I’d know I had avoided an unwelcome abundance. But if I really had a garden, I’d likely
     miss the fleeting season of the blossoms 

and suffer from the customary surfeit. If that happened I would wait to spot your Suburu
     nearby, its windows open  

in the August heat. I’d place the flowers of my ideal garden in an ideal bushel basket
     and leave it on the seat of your car  

if you had a car.
 




Beatitudes of Food 

​
Blessed be the lime, for its juices allow you to cook, without heat, the meat of a scallop.

Blessed be eggs, for you can make the yolks do one thing, the whites, another.

Blessed be cilantro, whose seed is “coriander,” whose leaves are “Chinese Parsley.”

Blessed be those whose taste buds recoil from cilantro.

Blessed be flour, which thickens gravy provided you stir to prevent the formation of lumps.

Blessed be the lumps, for they shall be known as dumplings.

Blessed be the tooth that first bit into a fresh tomato, ignoring the warnings.

Blessed be the gardener who came upon long, pink, edible stalks behind the dark, deadly leaves of the rhubarb.

Blessed be he, she, and they who send me recipes for spinach pie.

Blessed be the Indonesian mime, Pilut Gib, who cooks and eats a tulip, then writes his name in gratitude across a crystal mirror.