kitchen song

“They played our kitchen song
to my grandmother’s body in her bed.”

angelic voices drew us from slumber
to find the two women wrapped around a guitar

“Evening rise, 
Spirit come…”

winter passed this morning
and so did she

our freshly painted eggs swerve in the kitchen window as we sing 
death songs,
morning and evening songs
My phone records the clatter of kitchen noise over voices meeting like twining snakes,
music rises divine
and the women sit and knit time
stories of their people spill out over steaming cups

Decades of friendship, weddings and funerals and that postcard on the wall you sent 10 years ago
the mother and the daughter she didn’t have,
“i have somewhere a picture of you when you were seven”,
kinetic effects of dementia in the old,
That scatters,
and the newborn who can pull people back together

we whisk up garlic in the egg yolks blown into bowls yesterday
when the room teemed with people, laughter
Shhh not so loud, little man is sleeping
cigarettes on the balcony and
Smudged fingers strung up painted shells to dry

we sing high and low for all the different flavours of today

For what’s gone and what remains here too, brightly alive
mundane

lemon and cinnamon in the fruit salad

the tang of death
and the clean breeze of disillusionment
last night’s birthday blessings
and a guy on Bumble who said “I’ve seen those eyes before”

We do the dishes
And you get dressed for work 
Time for Keys coats boots bikes
As we close the ritual,
leave the scene
Pollinated,
Hearts humming 
From the softer and closer

next morning, 
a smiling message :

“They played our kitchen song
to my grandmother’s body in her bed...”

#equinox #springequinox #death #song #poem #lovepoem #ritual #kitchenritual #celebratingspring #celebratingdeath #celebratingfriendship