Cooking Up Trouble

When the prompt is the Moosewood Cookbook, you can't be surprised when the following poem spills out:

Cooking Up Trouble

Sneaking up the walkway
and through the back door
carrying a recipe filled with lessons
from the great books,

you mix together ingredients
that can be separated
only once
and even then you take your chances.

You start with young hope
sifted through intent and
measured nicely by honest hands
hoping that alone will suffice.

But of course it can’t.
So from the back cabinet
you reach for promises
waiting to be made and kept

and add them with fanfare,
simply because they must be mixed
with integrity--
otherwise they curdle at the first neglect.

This bowl can hold whatever you throw at it,
but not neglect.
And that is because some recipes
when they’re fudged or forsaken

fall into a million pieces
so even the great godesss can not reconstruct them,
and least of all you with your limited skills.
Better to take your time and measure
well enough, really well enough

So that when the rising’s done
you become whole
from those ingredients
you cooked up yourself.