The Feast

[intjonathan]

This poem comes back to me like a neighborhood cat, on afternoons when I least expect it. It arrived at my door yesterday, yowling. It remembered me.

The lovers loitered on the deck talking,
the men who were with men and the men who were with new women,
a little shrill and electric, and the wifely women
who had repose and beautifully lined faces
and coppery skin. She had taken the turkey from the oven
and her friends were talking on the deck
in the steady sunshine. She imagined them
drifting toward the food, in small groups, finishing
sentences, lifting a pickle of a sliver of turkey,
nibbling a little with unconscious pleasure. And
she imagined setting it out artfully, the white meat,
the breads, antipasto, the mushrooms and salad
arranged down the oak counter cleanly, and how they all came
as in a dance when she called them. She carved meat
and then she was crying. Then she was in darkness
crying. She didn't know what she wanted.

-Robert Haas

Comments

[fieria.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I get the ending perfectly, yet I keep focusing on the food/people because of the feeding last night -- there was only one piece of chicken left out of three bags, and it was half picked at. It will make a delicious lunch.

Em & Corina came early to wander around and help me, mainly just to keep me company as I ran around with crushed cornflakes and powdered ranch on my fingers while I pointed at things I couldn't touch. I don't think I can ever go back to having a small kitchen because it would be too lonely cooking by myself for others, and it's true what I told people when they thanked me for dinner: "I'd never make this for myself, it's too much bother for one. So thank you for coming over and eating it with me!"

[niralisse.livejournal.com]

One thing that surprised me about it when it came back this time was the specificity of the food items, and the feelings associated with them. When I first read the poem I found the lines atmospheric but little else, my inexperience with cooking and entertaining meant there was a feeling there I hadn't met yet. A couple years of parties later and I feel like I understand it better, or at least, am surprised at its effectiveness. The breads, the salads, the guests, the counter, the rhythm of of the foods and their simplicity forms the music for the dance the food performs at her call. I love how Haas arranges these familiar elements to express something so supremely unsaid.

[fieria.livejournal.com]

Rhythm: yeah. That poem expresses it pretty well.

And I don't know about you, but I've totally cried over food preparations for other people. It falls more under girly emotions that get brought out by traditional social paths/my god, there's emotions in food too, dammit.

I think the emotions have more to do with the activities the food is being brought to vs. the food itself, though--I've never cried over my salads.

[huggybee.livejournal.com]

I remember this one.
And where I was the first time I read it. I think that's why I love poetry so much. it creates time, freezes time and invents time. At least for me.