I spent a good portion of my morning attempting to work and reading poetry instead.
Ellen Bass. Let’s just talk about her for a minute shall we? Her words are breathtaking. They are beyond imagination, and yet so familiar in their arrival to your lips. Her poems feel fleeting and nostalgic, yet touch on everyday moments, events, reminders.
I’ll share one of her poems below, then go find the rest for yourself. Buy her book. Whisper her words. Surely, they are your words, too.
If You Knew
by Ellen Bass
What if you knew you’d be the last
to touch someone?
If you were taking tickets, for example,
at the theater, tearing them,
giving back the ragged stubs,
you might take care to touch that palm,
brush your fingertips
along the life line’s crease.
When a man pulls his wheeled suitcase
too slowly through the airport, when
the car in front of me doesn’t signal,
when the clerk at the pharmacy
won’t say Thank you, I don’t remember
they’re going to die.
A friend told me she’d been with her aunt.
They’d just had lunch and the waiter,
a young gay man with plum black eyes,
joked as he served the coffee, kissed
her aunt’s powdered cheek when they left.
Then they walked half a block and her aunt
dropped dead on the sidewalk.
How close does the dragon’s spume
have to come? How wide does the crack
in heaven have to split?
What would people look like
if we could see them as they are,
soaked in honey, stung and swollen,
reckless, pinned against time?
That poem, right? Wait. Just you wait until you read “Relax” or “Pray for Peace” or (grab a tissue and a fan for this one)…”Gate C22.”
Guys. Guys.
Did you just read “Gate C22“? Ohmyholydelicious. Right?
Shall we talk brunch foods?
I pulled this Quinoa Fruit Salad together for last weekends brunch at my Emily friends casa. We hung our heads over platefulls of this salad and hummed compliments into the air around it.
It’s not a nice salad.
It’s the sort of salad that finds you cussing because you can’t believe this random concoction could taste like sunshine and coconuts.
It gets the coconut flavor from coconuts. But the sunshine? Oh, darling. That’s all you. Every last bite.
Let’s just read fruit salad and eat poetry all day, and pretend like my photos were properly edited. Because, holy funky. What is up with those colors?
If you say you can’t see it, I won’t steal your sunshine.
And no, I don’t know what that means. It’s part of my poetically enigmatic approach to blogging.
It’s the new thang. Keepin’ it trendy, yo.
Quinoa Fruit Salad
Ingredients
For the salad:
- 1/2 cup slices almonds
- 1 tablespoon turbinado sugar
- 8 cups quinoa cooked according to standard directions
- 1 pint raspberries
- 1 pint blueberries
- 4 kiwi fruit peeled and sliced
- 1/2 cup toasted coconut
For the dressing:
- 1/4 cup fresh mint leaves loosely packed
- 1/3 cup brown rice syrup
- 1/4 cup coconut oil melted
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- juice of 6 limes approximately 1/3 cup of juice. Use bottled key lime juice if needed
Instructions
- Place the almonds and turbinado sugar into a nonstick skillet with 1/2 teaspoon of water. Heat over medium heat, stirring constantly until the almonds are toasted and the sugar begins to caramelize onto the almonds. Turn out onto a sheet of parchment paper and allow to cool.
- In a large bowl stir together all ingredients for the salad. Place the dressing ingredients into a blender, puree completely, then pour over your salad. Toss gently to coat. Sprinkle with almonds, if desired. Serve immediately, or store in fridge for up to 12 hours.
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