II: Eating Particular Breads

Cows graze. Pigs feed. Dogs eat.

Humans take communion with those
around and in them. So food must
be pure. Bread can be transfigured.
Coarse whole grain is in touch
with reality but you need white
flour to seek the mind. Bread
must rise, at least in our parochial,
rapacious culture, so we have yeast.
Sugar yields nothing to a healthy body or
a peaceful life but these three (quintessences
of indulgent aspirations) together, properly
controlled, create a texture that can make
you dream of clouds. Butter is not for
taste or ostentation, not in the
end, but for a thousand folds, mille
feuille, choi san, the ancient corruptible
dream of finite creatures verging on
infinity, baked to a moistened oily air
that would make clouds or candy floss
seem gross. And then, the shape, a
crescent marvel that engineers the
penetrating heat into a crisp brown
shell around a coeur de beurre, both
tense and soft against the bite but wait
be still
be zen

keep meaning at arm's length
pressing lightly on your fingertips
and say,
There's only pleasure here,
let only pleasure stay.