This is How to Say Goodbye

poem

Photo by Chang Duong on Unsplash

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This morning, the breakfast orange
slices somehow had me recalling
the rhubarb patch that grew

in the field beyond our childhood
backyard. Is rhurbarb a fruit
or vegetable? I don't know

but I'm not going to open
my phone to search
for the answer. Sometimes,

there's more magic in not
knowing. Nothing good happens
when you know too much

about the world. But I can
tell you what I do know for sure:
rhubarb is sacred. I learned so

from my grandmother.
She once made a rhubarb dish
whose unwritten recipe 

had been passed down for many
generations. It resembled
ice cream. But it tasted sour,

siphoned all the water from
my mouth, and had me sneezing
for some reason. I was ashamed

and felt like an incompetent Indian.
I worried that I'd offended
my grandmother and a millennia

of rhubarb. But she just smiled
and grilled me a good sandwich
with fresh bread, government

cheese, butter glaze, patience,
and forgiveness. It was then
that I first understood 

that some of the old traditions 
were never destined to become
the new way of being.

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