Poetry Friday: Sustenance (and happy anniversary, Atticus)

Atticus and I celebrated our 41st anniversary this week. 

And all those skeptics thought we'd never make it, (tsk, tsk.) But here we are, and here we'll stand, and here we go, shooting for another forty-one. (Well, umm, maybe at least another 30? We'll take what we can get, I suppose.) 

Here's a poem I wrote quite a while back, one I sometimes recycle on our anniversary. 

Happy anniversary, Atticus. Thank you for the bread and promises. 


Sustenance
by Karen Edmisten 

Bread,
like marriage,
requires the promise
of leavening.

There is flour and water —
foundation — yes,
but it begs
something more:
fermentation, lather,
messiness
and growth.
It must take on life,
risk failure,
swell in size,
though never
sloppily escape
its necessary confines.

My husband
mixes flour
and water,
baking bread for me.
It is nothing,
he says.

It is everything,
I counter,
as I watch him
measure, stir yeast
and add salt,
carefully constructing a promise.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Poetry Friday round-up is being hosted this week by Jan at Bookseed Studio. 

Photo credit: Giulio Perricone, Pixabay