Today's Sermon

APPETITE

I eat these


wild red raspberries


still warm from the sun


and smelling faintly of jewelweed


in memory of my father



tucking the napkin


under his chin and bending


over an ironstone bowl


of the bright drupelets


awash in cream



my father


with the sigh of a man


who has seen all and been redeemed


said time after time


as he lifted his spoon



men kill for this.

~ Maxine Kumin, 1925 - 2014