Philip Kobylarz, Emergency Hot Sauce, Photograph
Lament for a Ruined Pot
Yesterday she scorched her two-quart pot,
“saucepan” Georgia calls it, one more
offering to the gods of cookery,
this time sacrificing Harvard beets,
her mother’s recipe, a legacy of sorts.
Her mother’s much-loved pot, in fact.
Saucepan, I mean. When we married,
late in life, she prophesied
she’d be no kitchen goddess, no
Venus of the frying pan or stove.
Today, three ruined saucepans later,
three Club Aluminum pots, I do agree.
She’s not one to weep (spilt milk you see)
but smiles through adversity (tosses the pot).
This goddess handles calamity with ease.
______________
Ron McFarland
Review by Arvilla Fee
It is often the mundane things in life which make the most beautiful poetic pieces. This is true for McFarland’s “Lament for a Ruined Pot,” as we get to see the gentle beauty and grace with which both speaker and his love handle the ruined remains of a pot. The “sacrifice” of both “her mother’s recipe” and “her mother’s much-loved pot” are handled in such a way as to make the tragedy less severe. The speaker acknowledges that his wife “prophesied/ she’d be no kitchen goddess, no/ Venus of the frying pan or stove;” therefore, expectations were set from the beginning, easing future disappointments. We literally fall in love with the humor, ease, and patience with which the speaker uses in describing his wife. For all her self-prescribed shortcomings, his wife is “not one to weep (spilt milk you see),” and the speaker views her a goddess no matter how many pots are ruined.
Review by Zeke Sanchez
Understatement is a quality that shows up in McFarland’s poems. Although the word “lament” in the title harkens back to high Latin, McFarland brings everything down to earth, with a husband’s concern seemingly for a simple saucepan. In reality, the focus is, tongue-in-cheek, on the wife who is either truly unconcerned with the train wrecks she leaves behind during her attempts to cook or she’s a woman who puts on a good act of insouciance. In the end he praises her self-awareness in all things, including her choice to be other than a good cook.