Featured Poem

Wildness and Grace

Wild grapes tangle with wild plums
just where the road turns west.
When clouds of blossoms floated there
last spring, we felt blessed

by promises of summer fruit.
We didn’t see the vines
twisting up the slender trees
until today.  To find

the dust-blue grapes ripe among
the sunset plums was grace
itself: grace, from gratus,
pleasing, grateful; the embrace

of splendid momentary life,
the unsought present.
We fill our hands and baskets
with wild, luxuriant,

unexpected gifts.  Come cold,
come snow, come winter’s night,
we will have summer once again:
plum wine in firelight

and purple jelly on warm bread.
Snow and blossom, past
and future, world and spirit, all
in this moment: fleeting, vast.

Published in Alimentum: The Literature of Food