Today our host at http://www.ethicalela.com for the August Open Write is Margaret Simon of Louisiana, who inspires us to bring a piece of art or a creative form to life with words as a kind of talk-through process. In my kitchen hangs a white framed picture of a rolling pin drawn on notebook paper with colored pencil, a gift from my parents, numbered by the artist. It’s there alongside the framed handwritten recipes by generations of ancestors in my family. Cooking together was far more important back in those days, and one thing I wish is that I had learned to make biscuits as well as they did!
In This Kitchen
loop an apron over shoulders tie it in back
lift down their old bowl pour buttermilk
sift and grind pour and squeeze
hand mix knead pour
feel knead pour feel knead
sprinkle flour plop roll push
roll smooth cut cut cut bake
smell the spirits of loved ones once gone now here
in this kitchen
*During the months of August and September on days when I’m not participating in the Open Write at www.ethicalela.com, I will be writing in response to the pages of Dictionary for a Better World: Poems, Quotes, and Anecdotes from A to Z by Irene Latham and Charles Waters, illustrated by Mehrdokht Amini. The poems, poetic forms, narratives, quotes, and calls to action to make one small difference might be just the medicine my world – or the whole world – needs. I’ll be inviting insights in the form of an immersion into a 10-minute-a-day book study (just long enough to read the page, reflect, and connect). If you don’t have a copy of the book, you can order one here on Amazon. I invite you to join me in making August and September a time of deep personal book friendship. A few teachers will be following the blog and engaging in classroom readings and responses to the text. So come along! Let’s turn the pages into intentionally crafting beautiful change together.
Common Threads 