“Welcome home” (VI)

Ode to your refrigerator
 
A sea of snapshots,
a smorgasbord of smiling faces,
secured with magnets,
overlapping,
shoulder to shoulder,
populates your refrigerator door
and charges your kitchen
with a cheer of celebration,
with a chorus
of unbridled moments,
with a spontaneous embrace
of youth and vigor
and pulsating pureness.

It is impossible to open
your refrigerator door
without optimism
for what’s inside,
and, when it’s open,
in the wide yawn
of its chilling mouth,
another explosion,
a cornucopia
of color and shape:
bottles, jars, little boxes,
and the natural groupings
of the bright parade of produce.

Your refrigerator is
the open hand of abundance,
the primal source of existence,
the unlimited hope and bounty
of repeated rejoicing,
the assurance of living
and the brimming well of wellness.
It is the great fortune fully felt
by the ever-grateful soul
who seats me at her table and says,
“What can I get you to eat?”