WINTER BREAD was first published in Invitation to Kim (Iris Press, 1989) and later was included on the tape, Ice Storm and Other Poems Read By the Poet, George Scarbrough (Iris Audio Publications, 1997.)
WINTER BREAD
In my mother's kitchen
The meal bin
Was a fine oak barrel
With stout staves and
Scrubbed brass bindings,
By all odds the best
Furniture in the house
In its corner
At the head
Of the long table.
My mother dipped
Her head in, dipping,
Straightening
With a scoop
Flaked and spilling
Back rough bran
That smelled of old
Whiskey and popped corn.
Fruit-jar bouquet.
I begged permission
To dip my head in,
And she allowing,
Came up ineluctably
Drunk with
The yeasty atmosphere.
How bright the hoops,
Evenly stacked on darkness,
Shone in the half-
Light from the stove.
I could hear,
Outside,
The wolf-wind
In the valley.
It was December.
It is again December.
The wolf-wind howls
In the valley. This
Is a comfortable house,
With certain not-
Plain appointmemts,
(Among the best
Of furniture there is
No best furniture),
But there is nothing
I would not forego
To lift again
The lid of the meal
Barrel in my mother's
Kitchen for one deep
Unreconstructable
Breath
Of winter bread.
© George Scarbrough, 1989, 1997
George Scarbrough comments: "Among foods, bread has always been my first love. It was the supreme gift of the kitchen. I made an alter of the meal bin, a movable tabernacle, as it were, and total love was of its essence."