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| Hubert Shuptrine |
Top of the Stove
And then she would lift her griddle
tool from the kindling bin, hooking one
end through a hole in the cast-iron disk
to pry it up with a turn of her wrist.
Our faces pinked over to watch coal
chunks churn and fizz. This was before
I had language to say so, the flatiron
hot all day by the kettle, fragrance
of coffee and coal smoke over
the kitchen in a mist. What did I know?
Now they've gone. Language remains.
I hear her voice like a lick of flame
to a bone-cold day. Careful, she says.
I hold my head close to see what she means.
David Baker
And then she would lift her griddle
tool from the kindling bin, hooking one
end through a hole in the cast-iron disk
to pry it up with a turn of her wrist.
Our faces pinked over to watch coal
chunks churn and fizz. This was before
I had language to say so, the flatiron
hot all day by the kettle, fragrance
of coffee and coal smoke over
the kitchen in a mist. What did I know?
Now they've gone. Language remains.
I hear her voice like a lick of flame
to a bone-cold day. Careful, she says.
I hold my head close to see what she means.
David Baker
"This was before I had language..."
Here, a poem that fits me like an envelope.
I am grieving the deaths of my mother and father.
They passed away last year, only days apart.
They raised us kids on a homestead in the Back of Nowhere.
So the sounds and smells surrounding a wood stove are the sounds and smells of my childhood.
The painting of the empty chair by the stove - it says it all.
"They've gone."
But how blessed I was then, how blessed I am still, to have had them.
