Rachel McCrum - A Recipe for December 25th Poem #9

For body, flour. Wheat, corn, gram or spelt.
For binding: butter, oil or ghee. Clean water would do.
For flavour: salt from any of the oceans of the earth.

Remove from the bowl any flavours of mud and cold.
Warm with spice. A tip of cinnamon, mace and nutmeg.
Gingerly add thyme and sage.
Toasted seeds of any sort.
Gold is not useful here.
Almonds may be more
precious than emeralds.

Now add your eyes.
Follow with your ears.
Keep your tongue.
A palmful of open feeling.
Breathe.

Stir with two open arms
to the drumbeat of a heart.
Stir.
Stir.
Stir.
It may take more effort than you think.
Keep stirring.
You know this rhythm already.

There are words, chants, offerings
to be made over the bowl.
A sixpence for luck.
You know these words already.

Bake in an oven as warm as your blood.
Break into crumbs.
Scatter to the four corners of the earth.
You know this recipe already.
You know.