I am making spaghetti for my family

My trick is a little garlic salt in the boiling water

My husband calls that the love

Garlic salt is my trick for everything holy in our food

My husband says it’s the love

Casino is playing in the family room 

On our tiny television in the giant entertainment center

My mother bought thirty years ago when furniture

Was still real and heavy

One day I will get rid of it so we can have

A bigger TV, but today the little TV is enough

And I don’t mind the behemoth it sits in with

All my mother’s tchotchkes in the glass-doored

Cabinets and her ashes in a wooden urn on the corner shelf

The f-bombs from Casino float into the kitchen where

I am about to drain the garlic salt water pasta and

In my mind, I sing along with Joe Pesci as they come

My favorite movie, this scene one of my favorite songs

My husband and I appreciate vociferously his breath control

I drain the pasta and the salty steam rises to give me a much needed

Pore cleanser before billowing out of the open kitchen window

Into the twilight of a cool Southern California autumn that waited

Until mid-November to come but, blessedly, did come

I stop with the hot pasta strainer in both hands

Everything.

Everything.

Everything

Is perfect

Just as it is

The Goddess of All-That-Is

Has passed by my window

Come in through the open back door

Patted my poodle’s curly-topped head as she entered

Swayed into the kitchen

Stood beside me at the sink

Rustled her moonlight robes just enough so

That I could smell her whole dusky body

And her celestial perfume.

It smells like garlic salt, autumn, boxed pasta

Heavy wood, ashes, jarred sauce, 

My husband’s day old Old Spice, puppy dog

And love

-M. Ashley

I am studying both Taoism and Zen Buddhism. In one of my Taoist readers for today, the author talks about how Taoists read and write poetry. That gave me a little kick in the butt to get back to it. And especially in a way that honors one of the strongest Is-ness or Flow or Tao moments I have ever had. The words still aren’t quite getting it, but it is a pleasure to try.