Poem
Lionel Abrahams
WASTE
WASTE
WASTE
Who beside my mother knewa cabbage stalk stripped of its leafage
contains more goodness than mere garbage?
Her quick sure knife would pare away
the fibrous husk, rough with leaf-stumps,
slice off the watery rootward end,
and bring to light a white, damp cone -
the cabbage-heart.
Raw, this secret tidbit dipped in salt
would crunch up sweetly pungent,
more tenderly succulent than turnip.
She always gave the cabbage-heart to us,
splitting it lengthwise to fairshare
its flavours if more than one of us were near.
To my sisters and me this chewy nugget
was nothing much - by-product of cooking
routinely salvaged and eaten
not to waste.
Almost discarded memory - I strip it and retrieve
so late a faintly bitter spike of realisation:
how she would have relished the cabbage-hearts
she always gave to us.
© 2004, Lionel Abrahams
Poems
Poems of Lionel Abrahams
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WASTE
Who beside my mother knewa cabbage stalk stripped of its leafage
contains more goodness than mere garbage?
Her quick sure knife would pare away
the fibrous husk, rough with leaf-stumps,
slice off the watery rootward end,
and bring to light a white, damp cone -
the cabbage-heart.
Raw, this secret tidbit dipped in salt
would crunch up sweetly pungent,
more tenderly succulent than turnip.
She always gave the cabbage-heart to us,
splitting it lengthwise to fairshare
its flavours if more than one of us were near.
To my sisters and me this chewy nugget
was nothing much - by-product of cooking
routinely salvaged and eaten
not to waste.
Almost discarded memory - I strip it and retrieve
so late a faintly bitter spike of realisation:
how she would have relished the cabbage-hearts
she always gave to us.
WASTE
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