in memory of my mother
Making a home was
what you could do
best; and cookery
(the ritual at
the heart of it) you had
a kind of genius for.
So what I first
recall, thinking of you,
is a creamy table-top,
the grain etched
crude and deep, the legs
stained black, and you
at work, with rolling-pin
or chopping-board or
bowl; then, later,
presiding over
guests or children at each
day’s informal feast.
Your homeliness
displaced now, what survives
for me of it
is this: which
now becomes a model
of true art:
bare boards scrubbed clean,
black, white,
good work as grace, such
purity of heart.