#13 Being There ~ To Feed the People

A little summer bouquet: a captured moment as a mother, a garden poem (food this time), and a reader's connection with Africa.


BEING THERE

Andrew was mad. He was slamming around the study, swearing with every other word. Nothing was going right--it didn't seem as if anything could ever be right again. Timothy was sick. He had made it through a shift at work and was sitting on the couch recruiting his energies. His skin was hot and every time he spoke, he coughed.

These are my big wonderful sons whom I love more than words can tell, and there was nothing I could do to make it better for either of them. Any attempt to suggest a bright side or a possible solution to Andrew would only evoke greater wrath. I could snuggle up to Timothy and stroke his hands, but he was one sick puppy.

It sounds like a parental nightmare, but in reality it was a very sweet time. I don't often get both of them together that way these days. There was nothing else I had to do. Timothy was in remarkably good spirits and would recover. Andrew was well, and would not always be that mad. Since there was nothing I could see to do, I didn't focus my energy on trying--so it was all available to just be with them. Andrew swore, Timothy coughed, and I hung out loving them both. Simple--but somehow profound.

Pamela Haines
Philadelphia, 8/03


TO FEED THE PEOPLE

The crew comes at seven
already hens are chattering
companionably
excited by each new egg

(as a guest of this farm family
I can choose my hours
don’t have come at all
but they are short staffed today
and I am drawn
like a magnet
to this work)

I start in the lettuce
each head a work of art
to be placed reverently
in the box

Then washing by the barn
joining the crew
as they clean salad mix
leaf by leaf by leaf
carefully saving rejects
for the chickens

(Now I know the work behind those bags
in the produce section
Who gives thanks
as they pour that bounty out?)

Four pounds of basil
My friend buries her head
in my bag and breathes it in
How did God come up with that one
she asks

A farm worker from years past
arrives with her little one
to shop for vegetables
they join in cutting bouquets of parsley
the girl holds the rubber bands
and helps count

Sugar pod peas
I’m on my own now
three hundred feet
of bending
I try sitting, kneeling--
bending, unfortunately, is best
but peas fill the bucket
more than enough
and just a taste
of farm labor

After lunch I help the woman shop:
regular peas
(to check for size
snap open the shell
roll your finger down
to loosen the row
of shining new peas
and taste a fresh gift from heaven)
then broccoli
an enormous bouquet of Swiss chard
red, green, yellow, white

She is done
but we need ten pounds
more of chard
(I’m tired
on vacation
would quit
if I weren’t so clearly needed)
After washing and weighing
I have only eight
trudge back for more

Then
the salad mix order is short
more to cut
more to wash
leaf by leaf
(a soft rain starts to wet
the dry earth)

Then loading the truck
(all tired to the bone)
sending it off
to stores and restaurants
to feed the people

The reason
for all this love
all this work

Pamela Haines
8/03


AFRICA
I left part of my heart there in 1965 after a year of study and travel in Nigeria--and into seven other African countries. The continent wails with grief and loss and sorrow and being left out. It also beats and drums to the heartbeat of the universe. What an immense and diverse place and people on earth! How fabulous! What richness of culture and of spirit. Thank you for caring for a particular part of that continent and its amazing people.
Linda Jones
Chicago