All that Remains of us is Love

& all that remains of us is ache (2 poems)

Photo by John Jason on Unsplash

All That Remains of Us is Ache

Why is it that everything I gather falls away?

Even birds fly from my hands so easily. 

As if I’d never chafed the round crown 

of their heads, or housed them in my lap. 

As if I never knit their feathers 

when they had been rent by a storm. 

Everyone leaves. What we give is 

forgotten. And yet this ache 

for the sky. Its blue-blackness, 

its endless summer thunders. 

All that remains of us is ache.

And a memory of what our hands

healed, even when

they were bruised themselves.

All that remains of us is love

Your hands in my hands before you left. 

An invisible heirloom. Warm as the last shreds 

of ginger, quivering at the bottom of a pan.

Burnt. Over-boiled. 

When can you tell this about tenderness:

that it’s burnt past its cooking point?

That it’s now grown into something darker: a grief? 

A thousand questions in my heart.

All bury themselves by

themselves.

Your warmth in my hands. All that remains of us is love.

And how we guard it even when sliver by sliver,

it’s always falling from our hands.

---

Food Writing Workshop (July August batch sold out + exciting news on the next cohort of this workshop)

The present July-August batch of my Food Writing Workshop is full. And I am thrilled to meet everyone who’s signed up for it! Really looking forward to spending the next couple of weeks exploring delicious food poems & essays from all over the world. What it means to be nourished both by food, as well as language. I have been receiving a lot of messages about whether I will offer this course again.

And I’m overjoyed to say that I am running this Food writing workshop again in the months of September-October. If you want to register for the Fall cohort, you can do so here:

Food Writing Workshop: September and October Registration.

Being physically & spiritually well fed go hand in hand. In this Food Writing workshop, we will do both together.

This is a safe space where we explore the threads between Food and Grief, Food and Psycho-somatic Healing. Food & childhood nostalgia. The memory of your mother or father in the kitchen. Stories you love to return to. Or which you haven’t revisited in a while, but are waiting to re-open.

One of the things I love about writing is how it documents memories that would otherwise be lost forever. For generations ahead to read. This becomes even more significant in the context of food, & culinary traditions. The food choices we make in our homes shape so much of our domestic fabric. It’s politics.

Food is intimate and personal. But it’s also political. Feeding yourself well is an act of resistance. Of learning how to walk again.

Here are some of the things (amongst many) that we will be working on in our sessions:

1. Dig out our family recipes: weave poems & stories out of them.

2. Learn how cooking can be a way of mothering ourselves, tending to our pain.

3. Honour the histories of our specific food traditions (both filial and cultural).

4. Delve into our first memories of food as children. What we loved eating, what felt unforgettable.

5. Explore the threads between Food and grief, Food and Healing. How food can be a prayer. A way of caring for ourselves. Explore the kitchen table as a revolutionary space.

6. Read an exclusively curated list of amazing food poems and stories. Write at least 5-6 poems/essays/stories of our own.

7. Be part of a beautiful group of writers from all over the world. Share poems, trivia & recipes with each other throughout our six week course!

Want to join us? The July-August batch is full, but you can sign up in advance for the September-October one. Everyone who fills the form will be notified of when the registration opens up!

Food Writing Workshop: September and October Registration.

For more details on the workshop & what you’ll get out of it, click the link below. DM me if you have any more questions. I’d love to see you there.