Poet's Corner: food poems

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I am moving on to poems featured in Eat This Poem: A Literary Feast of Recipes Inspired by Poetry by Nicole Gulotta. Almost all of the recipes are far, far too sophisticated for my palate, but I am going to try to make the Earl Grey shortbread in the afternoon and post tomorrow. The second one I think is continuing in one of the themes appearing this month 'poems about poetry.'

While Eating a Pear by Billy Collins

After we have finished here,

the world will continue its quiet turning,

and the years will still transpire,

but now without their numbers,

and the days and months will pass

without the names of Norse and Roman gods.



Time will go by the way it did

before history, pure and unnoticed,

a mystery that arose between the sun and moon

before there was a word

for dawn or noon or midnight,



before there were names for the earth’s

uncountable things,

when fruit hung anonymously

from scattered groves of trees,

light on the smooth green side,

shadow on the other.



How to Eat a Poem by Eve Merriam

Don't be polite.
Bite in.
Pick it up with your fingers and lick the juice that
may run down your chin.
It is ready and ripe now, whenever you are.

You do not need a knife or fork or spoon
or plate or napkin or tablecloth.

For there is no core
or stem
or rind
or pit
or seed
or skin
to throw away.