Shanta Acharya
Highgate, London.
(With acknowledgement to Rumi)
A chickpea leaping out of the pot,
no more dry and hard, but ready to sprout; soaked overnight, then boiled fiercely
Yelled with all its might at the cook: “Why are you doing this to me?”
The cook casting the chickpea back in the pot
as if guiding a whale stranded on land, breathless, lost back into the ocean for its safety, replied calmly:
“When will you stop thinking only about your self; accept my cooking, careful and constant, as your destiny?
You think I am torturing you, when I am enriching your flavour
with spices, salt, garlic, ginger, tomatoes so you can mix with rice and vegetables, and nourish my Master’s family.
Remember the way Gardener tended you
while you drank rain in my Master’s garden, for months did nothing but fed on minerals and other nutrients?
You have come a long way from a seed planted in the vegetable garden
to the dawn of a new life in a cooking pot, to a taste conjured by me specially for you providing nourishment to humans.
Don’t you know we are all returning, our lives enriched by serving,
our home where we are going?”