The Poetry Marathon

Hour Nine – Walnuts

Walnuts

We used to crack walnuts at Christmas
and sometimes other nuts as well

I remember the nut-filled turquoise bowl
splatter-painted with the divided sections
Whatever happened to it?

The metal nutcrackers were so hard to use
the nuts slipping from the grasp of pudgy hands

But the adults would help you if you asked
aunts and uncles, parents and grandparents

In those days we would all get together
and talk while we cracked walnuts at Christmas

But the metal nutcrackers were so hard to use
and supermarkets sell them unshelled for you now
Isn’t it just easier that way?

We don’t even eat nuts at Christmas anymore
I guess those old days are gone

Curse of the Apple Crisp – HOUR 9

I searched in my cupboard for a food that brought up a childhood memory

but nothing worked.

I’m descended from a long line of omnivores.

I’m a boomer whose mom cooked with canned foods and processed flours, every kind of fat, and she baked a lot.

I’m not her.

For eight years, I’ve eaten a plant-based diet, low in fat, dairy, and meat free.

I don’t want to eat meat any longer. The texture and taste do nothing for me. Although I do indulge in the occasional piece of cheese.

At the beginning, I had trouble finding products to keep me plant- based but today with more people joining the movement, it’s easier to purchase foods for my diet.

I felt bad that I failed in finding a something in my cupboard that triggered a childhood memory, so I went back to take another look, and there it was – brown sugar. I recalled one of my favourite desserts – hot apple crisp with that rich, sugary, crunchy, cinnamon and nutmeg, oatmeal, and butter topping crowned with a scoop of melting vanilla ice cream.

Mom used food as a reward and made this dessert often. Unfortunately for my waistline, it’s a lesson I have yet to unlearn. It’s the curse of the apple crisp.

Don’t tell anyone, I still make it today! And I use Mom’s recipe!

Hour 10: Meeting of Minds

We knew it was love and passion

that found us then

marching in stride

side by side

signs high over our heads

singing out our yearning for peace

 

The fire still burns,

tinged with lust, trust, and fidelity

marching with one sign

between us

so we can join hands

for the cause

of liberty and justice

and love and joy

 

 

How to not cry

1. Take a deep breath

2. Think about something else

3. Watch/read something

4. Smile

 

Hour 9

I don’t have any specific memories
from when I was a child in Hong Kong,
just scraps of phrases and old photographs.
Scents and flavours, like the chocolate candy
filled with strawberry bubbles.

I do remember
when I ate it for the first time, again.

How its sweetness transported me back
to the green house in its heydays,
lychee trees in the gardens.
Two great-aunts at my beckoning.
The ice cream I would fetch twice a day,
I used to know my way around the village’s tricky alleyways.

Though in the early Summer heat the ice was more welcome,
it is the chocolate that unlocked my memories
and got me back to that patch of ground in the New Territories.
Though not a golden pastry in the shape of a boat,
not a madeleine, but a pearl in the mouth of the river delta,
I now rediscover treasures I never knew I lost.

Like that walk on the piers at night
I only know because of the picture at my grandparents’ place
on the nightstand next to my bed.
These photographs of old tell stories, show our care.

I discovered my great aunt kept a picture of my little sister,
finding her in the small red house brought back to me
feelings of being home amidst a family of strangers.
Come back again, she said.
And despite our linguistic distances,
I promised her
I would.

Firstborn -Haiku Poem 8/Hour 8

Firstborn -Haiku

By: LuvMiFreely

Aquarius sun

Strong, his name stands for healer

Thank you God for Jayce

9… Sleep (a haiku)

His touch, gentleness.
His breath, rhythm of my calm.
Here, we are at peace.

9th hr text prompt: The mango thief

It’s a mere creation

Without any potion

That ripe mango is here

To see my poetry hut.

At the very children’s  mart

I want to steal fruit

From the tree

So proudly.

That mango thief

Is called by myself

To do that

To enjoy the game.

That mango is so sweet

Wow! It’s the magic.

For the first time

I have made my mind

I’m stealing so many mangoes

From the tree with barefoot.

That is incredible.

Ma was too tired to cook (hour 9)

Ma would made me sit in my fav chair while she fed me

flaked corn has the magic to lift me higher like an elixir till now

maybe it is in the taste or paste that accompanies the flakes down

always a delight night and day, then and now

 

If I have to choose it would always be corn flakes

either on holidays after school or in the class or near the lake

the sheer ease of preparation and the crunchiness is always a lift

cannot think of a better way to enjoy my fav flakes with creamy milk

 

Any day Ma was too tired to cook was my best day

for sure you know it is flakes that would make the day

and my smiles were always as wide as the arc of the rainbow

till now flakes have the same effect on my palate and the rainbow

 

Easy prep it

Eat it drink it snack it

The taste is always in it.

The Good Ol’ Days / 9th prompt

A slice of bread,
And white at that
Covered in condensed milk
That was our snack

And sometimes that
Was dinner too
Single mother of four
Just trying to make do

Oh how I miss
Those days of old
Amidst the struggle
We didn’t fold

A time when people
Would lend a hand
Without any judgment
Or expecting paybacks

It’s sad that we
Have come so far
Technologically saavy
But cold at heart

I sometimes take a slice or two
And reminisce with my sibling too
Remembering the better days
When life’s simplicity was the way.

I pray those times will soon return
Go back to basics and relearn
To be good people from the start
And not take life to the heart

~Rebeli