Gratitude with Mise en Place
by Melissa McKinstry
For opening the orange bell pepper
with the knife’s quick slant—
lovely light,
for the bones exposed,
ribs sequined with seeds,
woven texture of flesh,
for the yielding of a small zucchini
speckled and streaked green—
a soft acceptance,
for the way one brown egg waits
with a single feather eyelash
to shatter in the pan.
Rilke said, All angels are terrible,
so you place this morning’s still life
as a stay against chaos:
the memories of praying
for more morphine
for your father, your son,
the way you held off the soft offense
of fear, the secret dark place
of doubt, to end their suffering,
the way you can’t tell anyone
how you pled with the terrible
angels, the brightness of their eyes.
Stubborn gratitude for the dahlias’ fringe,
magenta in the jar, mug of coffee
hot for the swallow, for all
the small October hallelujahs,
chopped and prepped on the board
of your morning mind.
Californian poet Melissa McKinstry was Millay House Rockland’s (MHR)’s first Writer-in-Residence, selected by poet Mark Doty. Of her poem “Gratitude with Mise en Place,” Melissa explains: “It was inspired by produce from the Thursday Rockland Farmers Market, a beautiful cooking shop called Mise en Place on Main Street in Rockland (across from the Arctic Tern), and hearing and reading Mark Burrows’s translation work on Rilke at the Belfast Poetry Festival and in his book, You Are the Future: Living the Questions with Rainer Maria Rilke and Sonnets to Orpheus.
MHR is thankful to have such a generous poet as its first Writer-in-Residence, a writer sensitive to the poetry of place and the place of poetry in the Rockland community, and The Third Fig Review hopes to hear from her again.
