Of simpler things
Returning to the blog with a submission from a summer art festival:
Intimations on Biscuits
Heritage is more likely known through simple things:
flour, buttermilk, and shortening
The implements employed here are the family’s treasures:
grandmother’s pan,
great-grandmother’s sifter,
great-great-grandmother’s technique.
The patience to get them just right, however, has to come
from some place deep inside the maker.
A dowry of sorts, as the man says with a smile,
“I married her because I loved her and she made the best biscuits.”
When she sinks her hands into the mixture -
cool liquid meets with the fine dry flour -
she is aware of a thread tightening around her and binding her.
This is what we have always done.
It is a way to reckon with failure.
They won’t be perfect the first few times…
brown on the bottoms,
lumpy inside,
failure to rise.
But there will be plenty of strawberry jam and Sourwood honey
on the table to ease the process.
c. 2011 hcs
