C is for CHESTNUTS AND CHOCOLATES on a Paris Walk #AtoZ

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

My daily #AtoZ posts combine two concepts in under-300-words per day:

an appealing food choice along with thoughts that spring to mind.

*** *** ***  

The fragrance of roasting chestnuts doesn’t bring flashes of holidays-past for me. Instead, I envision a sidewalk vendor on an abandoned street corner in the heart of Paris. It is a cool spring day. I am twenty-something, hoping to someday become a writer. And fancying myself sipping coffee with expatriates during those glory days following the war.

I too feel lost.
 

I ease along a side street, glancing into a sun-glazed chocolatier shop. But my rationed money stretches only to a half-order of roasted chestnuts from an oversized caldron, deftly scooped into a paper container by a faceless man bundled against the nip of late afternoon.

 

Walking toward Tuileries Garden, I chew on the rubbery flesh of a heated chestnut, thinking of the thumbnail-sized balcony attached to my hotel room where I’ve stashed a bottle of red wine, still over half-full. Like the money, I will also ration the vino, willing it to last another two weeks.

 

This trip should have ended differently.

 

As I fold the top of the paper container and stuff the remaining chestnuts into my skirt pocket for later, thoughts surface of plans unfulfilled. The future holds no wedding; no picket fence surrounding a small cottage where endless words flow onto pages of tattered notebooks; no novels rushed to an eager publisher.

 

Instead, solitary days will consist of plodding sentences, blossoming ideas, sudden inspiration. And endless possibilities of "someday."

 

Is it true that accomplishments are dreams transformed into reality?

 

HOLIDAYS and GRATITUDE #62 and #63

ANOTHER NEW BEGINNING

70 Poems for 70 Days 

 is a collection of poetry I wrote as a birthday present to myself and gifted in book format to 70 of my friends and family members. Over a period of 70 Sundays, I am submitting the poems in the order of composition, along with a short comment about the poem’s style or theme,
often including a complementary photograph.

With linked poetry, a form of Japanese Renshi poetry,

the last lines of one poem are used to form the title of the next poem,

then the next poem shifts to a different topic.

I hope you find a few entries that bring a smile to your face or a long buried memory to the surface of your consciousness. Poetry is like that, whether you are the reader or the author.

62

Now The Pie

 

Holidays bring family close together

with birthdays a favorite, for the cake.

Chocolate is the choice most every time.

 

The 4th means potlucks and fireworks

displays in the park, on the island,

or near the shore. With watermelon

chilling in the cooler for dessert.

 

Thanksgiving’s feast means

now the pie takes center stage, topped

with vanilla ice or fresh whipped cream.

 

Christmas is a winter solstice celebration

most anticipated every year. The sacred

offering of bread and wine consumed with

wrongs forgiven and gratitude expressed.

 

 

*****     *****     *****

 

 

63

With Gratitude

 Geckos on my lanai bring

good luck into

my home.

With gratitude

I watch their

high-speed sprints.

 

 Birds on the high wires

chirp me awake

the sun our silent clock

Their downy feathers

floating on trade winds

demonstrate a ballerina’s grace.

 

Nature delivers peace

at morning’s start,

lightening my cares.

Sipping caffeine black,

the pain subsides

leaving only re-occurring thoughts.

 

 

Ah, the unparalleled pleasure of sipping morning coffee on the lanai before the weight of the day demands your full attention. Still not fully awake, unmindful of opinions pressing down with unrelenting force, obligations stacked for later consideration, and disorderly expectations of unruly humanity. 

 

Soon, the geckos scurry for cover,

the birds' chirps become more frantic,

and the sun's golden rays appear to tarnish

 

Back to a world of reality. 

 

 

*****     *****     *****