One Drop by Bliss Broyard

One Drop: My Father's Hidden Life--A Story of Race and Family Secrets by Bliss Broyard

Bliss's account of the moment her mother encouraged her father to reveal his life-long secret that he passed as white:

"We want to know you," I said. And I did, but of course at twenty-three years old, I was also intensely curious to know myself--as a grown-up, not my parents' child. I thought, conveniently, of identity as a kind of board game, where solving the mystery of my father would allow me to move forward onto the next level of discovery. Years later I'd understand that a mark of adulthood is the ability to live with uncertainty. But back then I wanted to figure everything out, myself most of all. I hoped to discover that I was a complicated person, which I equated with being an interesting person, and since I was too young to feel I'd earned my own complications, I'd happily take some of my father." (page 11)

Bliss's description of the Mississippi River:

The Mississippi didn't evoke any of my usual associations with water: the expansiveness dissolving to melancholy when standing on the edge of the ocean, or the clean deep breath of a clear flat lake. (page 139)

Bliss describing her father:

But his conflict wasn't between black and white as much as it was between provincial and sophisticated, old-world and modern, literal-minded and literary-minded. (page 346)

A Small Fire

A Secret Life

Why you need to have one
is not much more mysterious than
why you don't say what you think
at the birth of an ugly baby.
Or, you've just made love
and feel you'd rather have been
in a dark booth where your partner
was nodding, whispering yes, yes,
you're brilliant. The secret life
begins early, is kept alive
by all that's unpopular
in you, all that you know
a Baptist, say, or some other
accountant would object to.
It becomes what you'd most protect
if the government said you can protect
one thing, all else is ours.
When you write late at night
it's like a small fire
in a clearing, it's what
radiates and what can hurt
if you get too close to it.
It's why your silence is a kind of truth.
Even when you speak to your best friend,
the one who'll never betray you,
you always leave out one thing;
a secret life is that important.

"A Secret Life," by Stephen Dunn from Landscape at the End of the Century

Belly to Belly

Forty-Five
by Hayden Carruth

When I was forty-five I lay for hours
beside a pool, the green hazy
springtime water, and watched
the salamanders coupling, how they drifted lazily,
their little hands floating before them,
aimlessly in and out of the shadows, fifteen
or twenty of them, and suddenly two
would dart together and clasp
one another belly to belly
the way we do, tender and vigorous, and then
would let go and drift away
at peace, lazily,
in the green pool that was their world
and for a while was mine.

How to Cope

The Orange

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It’s new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I’m glad I exist.

— Wendy Cope 

Lift Half

Splitting an Order
by Ted Kooser


I like to watch an old man cutting a sandwich in half,

maybe an ordinary cold roast beef on whole wheat bread,

no pickles or onion, keeping his shaky hands steady

by placing his forearms firm on the edge of the table

and using both hands, the left to hold the sandwich in place,

and the right to cut it surely, corner to corner,

observing his progress through glasses that moments before

he wiped with his napkin, and then to see him lift half

onto the extra plate that he had asked the server to bring,

and then to wait, offering the plate to his wife

while she slowly unrolls her napkin and places her spoon,

her knife and her fork in their proper places,

then smoothes the starched white napkin over her knees

and meets his eyes and holds out both old hands to him.


http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2009/09/08

Massive Patience

To be of use

BY MARGE PIERCY

The people I love the best

jump into work head first

without dallying in the shallows

and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.

They seem to become natives of that element,

the black sleek heads of seals

bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,

who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,

who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,

who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge

in the task, who go into the fields to harvest

and work in a row and pass the bags along,

who are not parlor generals and field deserters

but move in a common rhythm

when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.

Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

But the thing worth doing well done

has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,

Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums

but you know they were made to be used.

The pitcher cries for water to carry

and a person for work that is real.

Marge Piercy, "To be of use" from Circles on the Water

Secret Wineskins

Love Like Salt

By Lisa Mueller 

It lies in our hands in crystals
too intricate to decipher

It goes into the skillet
without being given a second thought

It spills on the floor so fine
we step all over it

We carry a pinch behind each eyeball

It breaks out on our foreheads

We store it inside our bodies
in secret wineskins

At supper, we pass it around the table
talking of holidays and the sea.

We Are All Broken Together

A Very Long Poem

Posted on March 11, 2013 by edunn7

This poem is very long
So long, in fact, that your attention span
May be stretched to its very limits
But that’s okay
It’s what’s so special about poetry
See, poetry takes time
We live in a time
Call it our culture or society
It doesn’t matter to me cause neither one rhymes
A time where most people don’t want to listen
Our throats wait like matchsticks waiting to catch fire
Waiting until we can speak
No patience to listen

But this poem is long
It’s so long, in fact, that during the time of this poem
You could’ve done any number of other wonderful things
You could’ve called your father
Call your father
You could be writing a postcard right now
Write a postcard
When was the last time you wrote a postcard?
You could be outside
You’re probably not too far away from a sunrise or a sunset
Watch the sun rise
Maybe you could’ve written your own poem
A better poem
You could have played a tune or sung a song
You could have met your neighbor
And memorized their name
Memorize the name of your neighbor
You could’ve drawn a picture
(Or, at least, colored one in)
You could’ve started a book
Or finished a prayer
You could’ve talked to God
Pray
When was the last time you prayed?
Really prayed?

This is a long poem
So long, in fact, that you’ve already spent a minute with it
When was the last time you hugged a friend for a minute?
Or told them that you love them?
Tell your friends you love them

…no, I mean it, tell them

Say, I love you

Say, you make life worth living
Because that, is what friends do
Of all of the wonderful things that you could’ve done
During this very, very long poem
You could have connected
Maybe you are connecting
Maybe we’re connecting
See, I believe that the only things that really matter
In the grand scheme of life are God and people
And if people are made in the image of God
Then when you spend your time with people
It’s never wasted
And in this very long poem
I’m trying to let a poem do what a poem does:
Make things simpler
We don’t need poems to make things more complicated
We have each other for that
We need poems to remind ourselves of the things that really matter
To take time
A long time
To be alive for the sake of someone else for a single moment
Or for many moments

Cause we need each other

To hold the hands of a broken person
All you have to do is meet a person
Shake their hand
Look in their eyes

They are you

We are all broken together
But these shattered pieces of our existence don’t have to be a mess
We just have to care enough to hold our tongues sometimes
To sit and listen to a very long poem
A story of a life
The joy of a friend and the grief of friend
To hold and be held
And be quiet

So, pray
Write a postcard
Call your parents and forgive them and then thank them
Turn off the TV
Create art as best as you can
Share as much as possible, especially money
Tell someone about a very long poem you once heard
And how afterward it brought you to them

taken from Marty S. Dalton's website

holds its freshness

Poem: "The Iceberg Theory," by Gerald Locklin from The Iceberg Theory (The Lummox Press).

The Iceberg Theory

all the food critics hate iceberg lettuce.
you'd think romaine was descended from
orpheus's laurel wreath,
you'd think raw spinach had all the nutritional
benefits attributed to it by popeye,
not to mention aesthetic subtleties worthy of
veriaine and debussy.
they'll even salivate over chopped red cabbage
just to disparage poor old mr. iceberg lettuce.

I guess the problem is
it's just too common for them.
It doesn't matter that it tastes good,
has a satisfying crunchy texture,
holds its freshness
and has crevices for the dressing,
whereas the darker, leafier varieties
are often bitter, gritty, and flat.
It just isn't different enough and
it's too goddamn american.

of course a critic has to criticize;
a critic has to have something to say
perhaps that's why literary critics
purport to find interesting
so much contemporary poetry
that just bores the shit out of me.

at any rate, I really enjoy a salad
with plenty of chunky iceberg lettuce,
the more the merrier,
drenched in an Italian or roquefort dressing.
and the poems I enjoy are those I don't have
to pretend that I'm enjoying.

Daily Bread

No-Knead Sandwich Bread

Makes one 9-by-5-inch loaf 

Mix the dough in a bowl with a spoon (you can double or triple the recipe if you like), and let it rise in the refrigerator overnight. The refrigerated dough can be used after 8 hours, or for up to 3 days. That means you can bake a loaf every morning and have sandwich bread by lunchtime.

4 cups all-purpose flour

1½ teaspoons instant (“rapid rise”) yeast

2 teaspoons salt

1⅔ cups water (Start with this amount, but you will probably need around 2 cups. The dough should be sticky, with very little dry flour visible.)

1. In a large bowl, whisk the flour, yeast, and salt until combined. Add the water and stir together until combined. Add enough water that you don’t see white flour that is not incorporated into the dough. Likely you will need up to 2 cups total water. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough overnight.

2. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and let rest for about 2 hours to come to room temperature.

3. Spray a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan with vegetable oil spray or brush it with oil. (Bread will stick if you do not grease the pan.)

3. On a generously floured work surface, turn out the dough. Sprinkle it lightly with flour and pat the dough into an 8- by 12-inch rectangle. Position the short side of the rectangle so that it is parallel to the edge of the counter. Fold the dough into thirds as you would fold a business letter: bring the bottom third up and fold the top third down to meet it. Rotate the envelope of dough one quarter turn. Stretch it into a rectangle again and fold it as before. Rotate the envelope so the seam is on top and pinch it firmly together to secure the dough into a log. Flip it over so that the seam is on the bottom. If necessary, roll the dough back and forth, moving from the center outward, until you have a log that is the same length as your bread pan.

4. Place the dough in the pan with the seam side down. Cover loosely with an oiled piece of plastic wrap and let rise for 1 to 1½ hours, longer if the room is cool. The center of the loaf should dome about one inch above the rim of the pan.

5. About 20 minutes before the loaf is ready to be baked, position a rack in the lower third of the oven and set the oven to 400 degrees. When the dough has risen, make three shallow, diagonal slashes across the top of the loaf with a serrated knife. Bake the loaf for 10 minutes and decrease the oven temperature to 375 degrees. Bake for an additional 25 to 30 minutes, or until the crust browns. (Total baking time is 35 to 40 minutes.)

6. Tip the loaf out of the pan and tap the bottom of the loaf. It should make a hollow sound and the bottom of the loaf should have browned. If it still seems squishy, put it back in the oven, directly on the oven rack without the pan, and bake for another 5 minutes or so.

7. Set the loaf on a rack to cool completely. Do not cut into the bread until it is thoroughly cool; it continues to bake and set as it cools. Once it is completely cool, store it in a plastic bag or wrap it in a clean tea towel. 

Recipe by Sally Vargas and adapted by Janet Kelley