Baking when family members die must be in my genes. I wish they lived down the street, not hundreds of miles away.

Baking after Aunt Jean died,
kneading the bread
as I did when my
mother passed,
kneading the bread--
a meditation for a thousand
years of women who
have sorrowed and borne
children, who have ironed
and washed and peeled potatoes
or made hills for squash
kneeling in moist spring dirt,
plucking dandelions daintily
away from the red-
veined new-sprouted beets,
mopping floors with vinegar,
cleaning dirt from beneath
their nails before shaping
the loaves a final time,
the kitchen fragrant with yeast.

Mother, sister, aunt, all alike,
each bright garden of carefully
cultivated memory & wisdom
lost in an instant,
whole lifetimes of
joy and sorrow and
resignation vanish,
as my patient fingers
knead bread.



Juliet Waldron © 2008 Oct. 29