Grandma's Kitchen Poem by Liilia Talts Morrison

Grandma's Kitchen

Rating: 5.0


The old folks retired, this kitchen their dream place
Bright cupboards so pretty and painted with care
In colors persimmon and palest of yellow
With wide open windows to Florida's air

The house a neat pile of local, hard pinewood
Flanked mangos and melaleucas before
Till grandma's old hand coaxed life to this acre
With citrus, tomatoes and palm trees galore

At even she brought in arms full of green bounty
Fresh from the land, her garden of love
While grandpa sat neatly and properly called for
the salad and dinner, and thanked Him above

The kitchen was small, the table quite wobbly
Chairs mostly mismatched, of different heights
Yet honesty, order and simple acceptance
Bathed everything in it with beautiful lights

Each chair was quite special, the family knew it
Grandfather would always sit by the 'frig
While mother was close to the sink and the cooking
Between him and starvation, a steady bridge

How often she gathered the tart calamondins
And fire red cherries of Surinam
Carissas or lemons the size of a grapefruit
Or loquats and kumquats, the Florida plum

She pored over booklets on Florida plantings
Though tropical life came only with age
Pickling and canning or making a jelly
Were daily routines as time turned each page

We all knew this kitchen would not last forever
Nor stand like an oak tree, refusing to bend
To forces so obvious seen in a garden
The planting, the growing and then, the end

So when I look at this faded old picture
A sink, a coffee pot, cupboards now bare
I think of my parents, departed old people
Who left us a blessing that none can compare
I guess you could call their gift an acceptance
Of living your daily reason to be
Which may be just picking a golden persimmon
That fell from a carefully grafted young tree

Or thanking and honoring Him who has blessed us
With life, breath and heartbeat wherever we roam
A memory lingering even as tears fall
That little kitchen, their Florida home.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Margaret O Driscoll 08 January 2016

This is an amazing, moving, loving tribute to a very skilled grandmother who seems to have been almost self sufficient, growing, cooking, preserving, gifts she acquired in her native land but adapted for Florida living.

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