I consciously avoid processed food items and their questionable additives. The opportunity to create a meal with fresh ingredients is a strong motivating factor. It emanates from my father's passion for maintaining an extensive fruit and vegetable garden when I was growing up. Money was scarce, but we always ate healthy meals. I adopted the mantra is 'Don't buy something your grandmother wouldn't recognize.'
This poem jumped into my trolley as I wandered through a local greengrocer's store. It further proves that we must be ready when the spark of inspiration presents its light. Verse from vegies and flavoursome fruit...
Scenes From a Greengrocery Store
Fresh produce, harvested and neatly presented
with precise packing
-Quite fetching to the buyer’s eye.
Oranges,
the colour of summer sunsets
Rise in glowing pyramids
Tomatoes stacked to beckon buyers
With their shiny, blemish free skin
And juicy promises held within, blush.
The lettuce sit tight
With their layers of folded secrets securely held from view.
Cauliflowers turn up with flowers tucked under their wings
While trim spring onions sit beside the leeks trying not to convey an air of inferiority.
String bean round and just a little bloated, cluster randomly
As the potatoes inform the world they like playing in the
dirt.
Onions with their flaky skins await the opportunity to make some unsuspecting shopper cry
when cut and sliced in some future kitchen ritual.
Blueberries are cheap today
Cheaper then yesterday
And all the bananas are bent.
Alan j Wright
Alan, this poem needs to be an animated show. Or maybe a musical! You've got all the characters right here. The spring onions "trying not to convey an air of inferiority" made me laugh. --Susan Thomsen
ReplyDeleteGrocerystore- the musical? Thanks. Susan. Glad you picked up on the humour.
DeleteAlan, Thanks you for this wholesome post. I love how you described all the vegetables, especially the potatoes! I just bought a book by a well-known nutritionist, Marion Nestle, entitled What to Eat Now (2025). It is a tome of 700 pages, but I am anxious to read what she says. It's available on Amazon. I am trying to eat less processed foods and cook more wholesomely. As I've aged, I worry more about what I put in my mouth and how I nourish my body. Your grocery store poem is an ode to anyone trying to accomplish that. I can also relate to being ready at a moment's notice for poetry. I regularly have to get up in the middle of the night to jot something down!
ReplyDeleteCarol, that book you just purchased, 'What To Eat Now' with its 700 pages sounds like a mountain to climb. Be careful not to drop it on your foot! You might need to plan some meals around your reading of it. I shall look for it. I like the concept of nourishing our bodies, and you're right, we often start to question our dietary choices as we get older. Like me, you present as a first responder when it comes to poetic sparks. More power to you.
DeleteThose poor bananas. Ha! I love it when a poem finds me. I've never had a poem jump into my shopping cart/trolley. You lucky shopper! Cauliflower with tucked wings...make me smile. Great poem!
ReplyDeleteHaving a poem find you is a wondrous thing to experience. Becoming a keen observer and an active listener, no doubt increases your chances. I'm always glad when a reader gains enjoyment from one of my poems. Thank you for your response.
DeleteWhat fun ways to personify the fruits and veggies! My favorite is "The lettuce sit tight"
ReplyDeleteThanks, Mary Lee. Along with personifying fruit and vegies, I am quite partial to eating them.
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ReplyDeleteAlan, I laughed out loud at "trim spring onions sit beside the leeks trying not to convey an air of inferiority." Love it!
Thank you Karen. Getting a laugh is most pleasing.
DeleteNice! I too have some food gathering practices. 1. Eat what is supposed to be in season. I refuse to eat a cantelope during the winter. Usually. 2. I like farmer's markets, but really love a good roadside farm-stand. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteDoida, eating food in season is a sound practice and farmer's markets are always worth a stroll through.
DeleteLettuce with secrets and cauliflower with wings! I don't think I'll look at vegetables in quite the same way now. Love the humor! Thanks, Alan.
ReplyDeleteI hope my revelations have made you too suspicous of fruit and vegetables, Rose. As you know, most of them are quite harmless once you get to know them. Thanks for appreciating my attempts at humorous intent.
DeleteAlan, what a fun poem. I loved the prose you wrote and the wisdom of buying foods without processing that our grandmothers would recognize.
ReplyDeleteThe personification of the fruits and veggies in your poem is delightful. Some of my favorites:
"Potatoes playing in the dirt", the inferior feelings of the spring onions and leeks, and
"Cauliflowers turn up with flowers tucked under their wings" So fun!
Thanks Denise. Your comments give me an appetite for more foody observations moving forward.
DeleteI just adore this poem! As you unveiled each veggie/fruit observation, I marveled at your creative eye. I couldn't wait to see what you did with each one! Those blushing tomatoes, the cauliflowers tucking flowers under their wings, etc. Such a fabulous example of how to really be present in your environment and wonder at all that surrounds you. Thanks so much for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThank you Molly for your kind and generous response to my poem. i very much value your observations. Much appreciated. I shall endeavour to maintain a keen observer's stance when out in the world.
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