Poetry: Selections from Rob Cook

Grace

Let's take a moment to give thanks to

everyone who made this meal possible:

to the cooks who prepared the food

to the grocers and the farmers

 

To Frederick McKinley Jones

who invented the Refrigerated Delivery Truck

without which the food would have rotted on the way

 

To the Bronze Age merchants

who invented money so we don't have to

haul around a boatload of cows to barter for Cheetos

 

To the countless generations of early humans

who found out the hard way which plants were poisonous

who eventually got tired of all that hunting and gathering

and started domesticating food like this squash and this turkey

 

To our pre-human ancestors especially Australopithecus

who figured out how to control fire and invented cooking

which got more calories out of food which fueled larger brains

which let us develop language which lets us read squash recipes

and gossip and say grace and work out the principles of thermodynamics

needed to invent the Refrigerated Delivery Truck

 

To the Precambrian microorganisms who preceded animals

with a special shout-out to the lazy bum who first smacked

its little proto-lips and gobbled up an unsuspecting neighbor

instead of doing its own damn photosynthesis

 

To the sun for showering us with the photons needed for photosynthesis

to generations of stars before the sun that fused hydrogen atoms

into the elements that form the molecules in this food and these bodies

 

To the Big Bang for creating all that hydrogen in the first place

to gravity for holding the whole shebang together

so we can be sitting at this table on this planet

not floating around out in space somewhere

 

To the miracle that any of this exists at all

and that we get to be here for it

 

To the generations who came before us

and the rituals they passed down to us

like special meals where we gather

together with family and friends and

take a moment to take it all in and go wow

and raise our glasses in gratitude. Cheers!

Leap

for Mary Anne

 

As if a fish ran up across the water,

waved a fin, and leapt onto my plate.

Perhaps a sea witch cleaning out her larder

tossed it there, though was it food or bait?

 

I met you on vacation by the sea.

We talked and ate, we walked and kissed — oh what

a week! And then the we was you and me

with lives and plans a continent apart.

 

But now we clink our glasses as we cheer

that foolish leap of faith we took that brought

us so much happiness for all these years —

as if the twists of fate that are our lot

 

are songs of mermaids offering a chance,

and we can take the risk or miss the dance.

The Other Boy 

Another boy used to live with us

and we were bestest friends

and we played together every day

 

Sometimes he did things that got us in trouble

like when he said let's catch crawdads in the creek

even though we weren't supposed to get dirty

but he said c'mon and it was a lot of fun

and we only got a little bit muddy

until we made pretend like we were crawdads

and that was even funner but we got a lot bit muddy

Mommy yelled at us and I tried to say I'm sorry

but the other boy screamed I hate you mommy

 

After that the boy started hiding

not hide-and-go-seek hiding but for-real hiding

I asked him why and he said

I can't even breathe without getting in trouble

but I don't understand because

we live in the same body and

I can breathe just fine

 

The last time he was here he tossed

a water balloon into the living room

and I laughed so hard I couldn't stop

even when daddy got mad

Then I got scared and said

it wasn't me it was that other boy I'm a good boy

but daddy spanked me anyway

Last night the boy came back

while I was sleeping

we catched crawdads in the creek again

and we got muddier and muddier

and we laughed and we laughed

Then the boy started to leave and I cried don't go

but he just looked back at me and winked and said

See you in high school kid

What Darkness Taught Me 

Light was still within me

even when I couldn’t see it.

 

Life was still a blessing

even when I didn’t realize it.

 

Love was still around me

even when I wouldn’t let it in.

 

And I could somehow find my way

even when I felt the most lost.

Rob Cook was a founding employee at Pixar and recipient of the first Oscar given for software. A childhood in rural east Tennessee was followed by a period of physical and spiritual wandering that eventually landed him in San Francisco. Along the way, he studied physics, played piano, rock climbed, and meditated. He likes to live at the intersection of art, science, inner exploration, and worldly practicality, sprinkled liberally with adventure and fun. His work appears in Better Than Starbucks, Evening Street Review, Jelly Bucket, Nonconformist Magazine, Soundings East, Talking River Review, Visitant Lit, etc.