The Recipe
Jimmy Long
Notes on her morning
list became carrots
with limp stems and pungent
broccoli bunches I lifted
from grocery bags
in the kitchen. Light shone
on cans of chicken stock,
seemed to melt the fresh
Havarti and made
a half and half bottle glisten
with droplets of condensation.
It was clear
while I grieved
yesterday's violence in today's
newspaper pages, she
had focused on survival,
what it meant at this moment,
how to make it go down,
and determined the recipe
was broccoli cheese soup:
the feast we would put
in our mouths.
Shaking Down the Acorns
Jimmy Long
When everything finally ends,
I find time on Saturdays
to watch rain plunking
the lacquered deck boards.
It falls like wild banjo notes
blown in November wind
from songs my mother played.
I breathe the grey mist
and burnt, orange leaves,
notice the wilted impatiens
in forgotten terra cotta
pots and wonder,
where have I been?
Author’s Commentary:
About “The Recipe”
This is a poem in honor of my wife. Although practical gestures do not immediately register as "romantic," they often are amazing expressions of love.
About “Shaking Down the Acorns”
I first wrote this poem at a time when I was yearning for the traditional mountain music sounds of my youth. Shaking Down the Acorns is a great old fiddle tune.
A native of Buckhannon, West Virginia, Jimmy Long earned an English degree from Marietta College in 1993. In recent years he has resumed an active writing life in Charleston where he works and lives with his family of five. Long’s work has been featured in Appalachian Heritage and in 2016 he won first prize in poetry for his submission to Mountain Ink Literary Journal.
