Poem: The Universe for Breakfast

mb31-TheUniverse1Looking intomy cereal bowl I find the universe, smiling. Banana - from the Caribbean; rich soil, mother of growth for wide-leafed tree. Tropical rains, cooling thirsty earth, born of clouds, bringing water from distant lands to the buds, ready to flower. Sun, kissing the petals opened.

Grape Nuts cereal brown, ripened fields of wheat and barley swaying in the winds of America's bounty. Country of my birth loved, with mixed emotions, sad at your misused might thankful for the refuge of my desperate ancestors.

Pumpkin seeds - from far off China, soil for Indian wisdom of wandering Nuns bringing tofu and love, germinating kernels of Zen simplicity.

mb31-TheUniverse2Sesame seeds - from Guatemala, land of hope and death squads, repression and Liberation Theology.

May the sweat upon these seeds be repaid with just bounty, giving child labourers a place at school, full bellies and warmth of home.

Organic milk - from British cows like those I see beyond my window munching spring growth on Stourbridge Common, leaving fertiliser. All the same to mother earth, great transformer of putrid smells into rosehip buds for next year's tea.

Sitting at my table I taste the sweetness of childhood food, feeling distant products transforming within. Suddenly, they are real, beyond plastic packaging divorced from storms, deep roots and light.

Even a city girl, raised in cement, can taste the universe, chew the wind, digest the sun and know it's all possible at this very instant when I breath, beyond time/space, in the ultimate dimension.

Joy Magezis inspired by Thich Nhat Hanh 's Norfolk Retreat

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