[POEM] Meal in Retrospect

I once had dinner with you,

the heat of our bowls nestled

to our palms. The rice submerged

in succulent broth, bok choy shimmering

beneath rich silk, pork tender

and firm between our teeth.

There was a pang of ginger

and a perfect balance of salt.

The essence of it in our eyes

obscured our vision. We navigated

with our hands and our mouths

savoring each taste in our throats

the joy of our blindness coming

as warmth in our chests, slipping down

and down and through and through

We poured for each other the dark

tea from well worn and heavy porcelain

the weight woven tightly in our fingers

into our matching cups, stout, wide mouthed

and accepting of essence of herbal leaves, bitter

sweet satisfaction on our lips and in our core.

Finishing the food, a fullness descended

around us, as if we were wrapped

in the security of our sated hunger.

Moments from before then, in eons

past, some echoes of this communion

rise to mind. They are distant and faint,

only suggestions that anchor the experience

and are newly colored by what we now share.

There was nothing of the heat

from then, nothing of the urgency.

In the past, there was never a fullness

that permeated the air around us

that told us anything about oneness.

Instead, it is as if this memory was a pebble

thrown in a lake where the folds

of the lake ripple outward continuously

and yet remain water all the same, touched

by the stone for having been cast into its depths,

a measure by which to know the stone

a measure by which to compare all other meals

where nothing else will ever taste the same.

Accept this food on our tongues

remember this meal in our years

and maybe we will return here again.