I find in this small task
          the peace of what I have
          and what I’ll someday lose.
                                    -- Tim Bowling, “Washing Dishes”

 
What a pleasant state of contentment
to stand in the kitchen at the counter top,
the lettuce, bell peppers, tomatoes, zucchini
all laid out on the altar before me, awaiting
transformation--the rinsing and peeling,
slicing or dicing, required of each
separate veggie that will metamorphose
the random green host into the oneness
that is salad, the way a vegetable
both loses its own self yet becomes
a distinctive part of the whole,
as each child brings its uniqueness
to a classroom. Such pleasure
I find in this small task.
 
I didn’t always feel this way.
Once, the making of a meal
or any dish was purely functional.
It wasn’t until I was a father I understood
that food and who prepares it and how
is special and holy in the eyes of a child.
I grew in the kitchen, donned chef’s apron,
not from sense of duty, but because
doing it and doing it well revealed
the peace of what I have.
 
Our children are now parents themselves.
They don their own family rites like aprons,
their own ways to show how important
little rituals are in the life of a healthy family.
From the sidelines, as I watch my own sons
assume their fatherly kitchen roles, I  smile
and am grateful for all I’ve had
and what I’ll someday lose.
 
From What We Miss (thistledown press, 2010).
Used with the author's permission.