Pie Baking

Rolling out pie dough
into continent shapes
first Asia, then Africa

I feel my grandmother's wildness in me
navigating rough edges of coastline
as I steer the rolling pin like an oar
Like an antique relic from her "roaring 20s"
it rocks back and forth

I relive my mother's frustration
while patching the dough where it's spotty or torn
Trying to stretch what isn't enough
Nine kids, two hands and a sticky mix
that clings to wax paper

As I search the bowl of blueberries
for the bluest-black ones
I remember "4 and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie"
"Hush little baby don't you cry"
and my son arranging battles
between blueberries and grapes
The blueberries always lost
because he ate them

Soon he will come to collect
a last sweet taste of his childhood
He doesn't care that the pie center has sunk
that the blueberries aren't wild from Cape Cod
He doesn't remember when women wore aprons
and mothers taught daughters how to bake

With two potholders I carry the pie
Set it on the table to cool
Something in-between
wild and tame, sweet and sour
Something in-between
"Three little kittens that lost their mittens"
and Eve's holy offering of fruit
all exist together in an archetypal pie

Raised by her German carpenter father
my mother never taught me how to bake a pie
but I saw her do it and learned by osmosis
and with the help of my friend Jayn's recipe

It doesn't matter that my mother didn't teach me
because Jayn's mother taught her
and now my pie sits on the table
like an icon at an altar
an enduring reminder
of every mother's love

Josh's birthday, July 10, 2003