I was writing haikus deep in Iao Valley this morning where I swim, and I caught sight of two mating forest spiders on a web line over the rock pools. And I have to say it was fortuitous for the poem to receive this imagery on the accident that art was there. In grad school I remember my writing teacher saying that the beauty of a haiku lies, not when a revelation is imagined as compared (ergo a metaphor), but instead you will find it in a nature scene and express it as it is - words merely set their stage, and they show. I have often been asked why I suffuse with poetry and even poetic studies are prominent in my food blog, and I address the question with candor. Cooking is a thematic approach to "storytelling" in the spirit of I harvest the fruits and vegetables I eat. But it is not that food and poetry are connected; they only meet every time at the intersection of my lifestyle. On weekends if I'm not reading/writing, I am in the kitchen always making salabat (a Filipino turmeric root hot tea, an indigenous panacea for the weary body), or thinking up what to do with the teeming produce I have in the fridge (mostly given to me by my ohana friends). I think through the lens of poetry and that is to say: when I am full and happily nourished, a lot of that goes to my heart. The rambutans aren't as sweet as I'd hope, and it's probably because of the absence of the trade winds (lately) from the earth's rotation, but I got them at the store anyway. They were unexpected at the fruit section where bananas and pineapples were common - just like the insects I found at the waterfalls stream cove while I was writing a poem. I think I will "plum wine" the rambutans to prune in their hidden flavor, fermenting them for a while is a clear jar with water, sugar and a node of spice from the root (in picture). Years ago I was traveling to Suzhou, China and had a wonderful tea service on a floating restaurant adorned with red and gold lanterns. On the bottom of the antique cup was a green pruned plum and it made all the difference in the oolong tea, elevating the flavor of my drink by giving off (like smoke) its concentrated spirit from an aged fruit (until they bloom; it reminded my of an Aeschylus parable that warned if you truly love a flower don't pick it). I visited a classical Chinese garden in Suzhou (this ancient town, by the way, is the cradle of Zen landscaping design) and my local friend there, an art historian, guided my imagination as we walked through the winding pebbled pathway with hidden symbols marked for the discerning eye. Bats. They are bats, he said, very significant in Chinese poetic literacy. The filigreed window of the pond temple is a bat. As the mosaic wall against the bamboo trees. The wood bridge railing is carved with bats. The serenity of the garden is the evident reason why during the day the bats are asleep. They slumber for the sake of the garden's tranquility (and for us, he explained, to capture beauty's moment). Only at night do they fly out like infinity ... to the harvest moon.
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