POEMS/ Winter Soup

Winter Soup

I am cooking the soup my mother used to make,
a good soup, thick and tangy, smelling like
cinnamon and raisins, apples and tomatoes,
spices that surface in an old and dented pot.

I can see my mother standing at the stove, stirring love
and tears into her broth with a battered spoon;
I hear the popping of bubbles,
rising to the surface like my father’s anger,

simmering until it came to boil and bitter to the taste.
I turn the flame to low but now my soup smells sour
till you come in and put your arms around me
and bring me back into our lives together.

At once, the fury in the soup subsides
as if the storm within the pot had passed
like some brief squall across a summer pond.
The acrid scent within the room dissolves.
 
My mother’s soup is ready. I fill our bowls,
slice bread and fragrant cheese, and we
sit down together. No need for words.
We dip our spoons into the past and find it sweet.

This poem appears in All Roads Go Where They Will (Antrim House, 2010)

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