FROM THE SAVANNAH IDYL COLLECTION
Savannah,
beside yourself?
How God puts up with us.
How we must try the patience
of the Almighty.
But he lets us go on
until everything inside settles down.
I sometimes think,
there’s voodoo in our recipes.
We fill libraries with our books
on cooking.
Maybe they come from the marshes
when they fill with fog,
and alligators take a shine to people.
Although I never knew anyone
that ended up that way.
The people I know have more sense
than being in a swamp at night.
But in any case our food shows imagination,
and sometimes I think,
there’s nothing in the sea
we wouldn’t eat or try to.
How we’ve never wiped out
the crabs and oysters is a mystery,
and the knife twirling
that goes on in our Asian restaurants,
well I believe have taken off
an ear or two.
Anyway, that’s a good story in itself.
But we are a seaport,
and I wouldn’t be surprised
what people find here.
I never am, although food
is as fickle as romance.
You fall in love with something,
then one day you forget you ever eat it.
You didn’t fall out of love,
you just forgot,
and a certain blindness sets in
when reviewing a menu.
It’s there,
and it’s not there,
whatever it was.
You see her,
and don’t see her,
if you know what I mean.
Unless
you write a poem or song,
and then you cry a little,
and go about your business.
There’s so much to try in the world,
and the south has a big breast.
She never turned a sailor away,
or a man who knew himself,.
As true today
as it’s ever been.