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Monday, April 19th, 2010

radishes

I ate a radish last night... and then this memory came back. I bet this happens to you all the time... perhaps with other vegetables?


radishes
4-18-10

we’d run them under cold water
a token gesture to hygiene
leave them wet and then carry them
barehanded to the kitchen counter.

we would sit on stools
knives in our right hands
mostly not talking
surgically snipping, red into white.

he would coat the bottom of a bowl
with salt, generously poured,
set equidistant between us
for the field dressed candidates.

eyes down in the bowl
watching our work
we’d eat as we cleaned
in batches of two or three.

a rhythm emerged:
snip the ends,
grind the salt,
crunch in the mouth.

this is what true ritual does:
pulls us back, whole,
into original kinship.
eating radishes with my father.

Posted By John Common at: 2:04 pm

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