Today I mixed flour yeast, salt, water and a little oil
With my fingers, into a dough in a glass bowl.
Like a magician preparing transformation magic,
So that once established in its oiled tin, my dough would rise
As delicately as a child’s breast rises on every intake of breath.
I covered the tin with a cloth and left it.
With my house empty, the air quiet and still
I ventured that the yeast would work its mystifying miracle better.
Those pockets of carbon dioxide emerging like butterflies from their pupa
Into the winter’s day,
The day contracted by the travelling sun,
A day as short as a gasp of surprise, light barely present.
Night shades lurking silently, the curbed hours through.
When I returned home, significant time had passed
And the opalescent moon had risen majestically to court Venus.
Under the cloth, I saw the curvaceous mound of risen bread,
No stellar acolyte, but somehow
In its microcosmic way similarly beautiful.
Trudie Shannon
