Food (NaPoWriMo 2016)

The official NaPoWriMo prompt for today is a challenge to “write a poem about food. This could be a poem about a particular food, or about your relationship to food in general.”

Given the importance and prominence of food in all our lives, you’d think this would be a fairly easy task. Instead, I found my mind circling around the topic, jumping from one aspect of food culture to another, thinking about food in a variety of contexts. So rather than try to focus on one isolated idea, I used that jumping-circling itself as the jumping off point for my poem.

Food

Gustatory delights are so often
Compared to love or sex,
Yet I find myself deeply discomfited
By the thought of carnal relations
With my food.

Food grants physical pleasure,
True, just like sex,
And even spiritual satisfaction,
Just like love.
One does love to eat.

Frequently, too, food factors
Into our love lives,
Our personal relationships,
Our sex lives.
Food can be sexy.

But food is none of these things.
Food is art, food is fuel,
Food is flavor and aroma
And texture and the
Shared experience of a meal.

Food is present in our lives:
Celebrating our weddings, our birthdays,
All our good news.
It consoles us in our grief, our loss,
Comforts us when news is bad.

Food is how we celebrate,
But not what we celebrate.
It’s how we seek solace,
But not what we seek solace from.
Food is part but not the main.

Food is sexy,
But not sex.
It’s lovely,
But not our love.
Food is fuel.

But also essentially more.
Food is flavor and aroma
And texture and the
Shared experience of a meal.
Food is art.