Kitchen Hymns VI

“first we eat, then we do everything else.”
— m.f.k. fisher

✧

By evening,
the kitchen had softened into traces.

Broad bean skins
opened like small green mouths
across the table.

The soup pot,
still warm.

A spoon silvered
with the last of it.

Nothing extravagant.

Only what could be gathered,
simmered slowly,
salted by hand.

✧

There are forms of abundance
that do not announce themselves.

A dark loaf.

Olive oil.

A bowl passed quietly across a table.

The body asking
for very little,
finally.

✧

Perhaps this is another form of devotion:

to use a thing completely.

To remain beside it
until it has given
all it came to give.

⸻

⸻

The broad beans
gave everything twice.

First the pod.
Then the pale green body
hidden inside it.

✧

A soup made slowly enough
begins to resemble prayer.

Not because it is sacred.

Because attention
has entered it.

✧

There are days
the body asks
not for pleasure—

only steadiness.

Only warmth carried carefully
to the table.

⸻

In the Golden Hour

For those who wish to step further into the kitchen after supper,
the companion offering includes:

✧ a voice note reading of Kitchen Hymns VI: after supper
✧ a small ledger list: on enoughness
✧ aftermath fragments from the kitchen
✧ an exclusive visual study
✧ a seasonal note for broad bean pâté & spring green soup
✧ a small kitchen liturgy for difficult seasons

[upgrade to the golden hour]

⸻