My Recipe

I’ve thrown most of it in the bin
There was nothing I could do for it
With all its sweet and all its spice
The bitterness bled through the rice

I’ve eaten from this plate so long
A change in taste just seems so wrong
These are my flavors, my work of art
That has been so carelessly picked apart

People assumed its cumin seed
But in fact I gathered fennel weed
Little did one ask or care
How far I traveled to get them there

The icy pepper from the mountains
Grew amidst its frozen fountains
The subtle base of starch and staunch
Grows in a pot on my brothers porch

Spicy gifts from lady friends
Always helped with culinary trends
While smooth white cream and softest butter
Were added by my doting mother

Lemon lime picked from the tree
Of those that I no longer see
Fertilized by tears of rain
I could never pick that lime again

A dash of love, of laugh and dance
A few years in a cooking trance
Everything that I had lived
Everything I had to give

..................

Now you say, your tongues matured
Only touched by the salted and cured
And I’m still holding the chilli seeds you shared
For me to throw in ‘if I only dared’

A mouth agape and a broken heart
Gets in the way of any art
Now I think ‘is this poison stew?’
Or is it just that it poisoned you?

My second guesses have no place
In this hell bent for leather ratty race
I’ve been cooking for so long
You cannot say my recipes wrong

This is me and my creation
Spices, lime and apparent damnation
Now as most of me rests in the bin at my feet
I realize that I still need to eat

And I have trashed a beautiful stew
Because it was not suited to you
When all it ever needed to be
Was enough to fill and satisfy me.