Tempering

Rice that’s fed to the gods must be allowed to sweeten in
a gourd: they like best the foam of its intoxicating ferment.

Oh most golden fruit, unblemished skin of melon or pear: meanwhile
we cook the rinds and boast about their notes of complex ferment.

An offering’s a gift: largesse, windfall, the best willingly
given up. No seed pearls that sour, then soon ferment.

And children sing in any tongue their mouths know how to give
shape to: what joy in that honey, before bitterness or its ferment.

Mornings, more often now, in the winter-bare trees, the birds bring
their small, brightly colored racket: I love that startling ferment.

I’ll lie down in my bed at night and pull you close as a sheet,
to dream of bees buzzing in the hive, their ambering ferment.

 

In response to thus: small stone (265).

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