Navy Bean Soup

Xylophone blessing of rain.
Warm sun-blessing: last drops
splashing the golden birch.
Fragrant blessing: broth and spices
teaching me the Sabbath. 
There is no rushing 
the moment a navy bean becomes
delicious. So restfully soft. 

I have been thinking lately in a small group of women. There are nine of us, gathering weekly via The Abbey of the Arts, to contemplatively consider specific themes. On the afternoon we talked about Sabbath, our facilitator, Melissa Layer, shared that she had been making navy bean soup all afternoon. “There is no rushing,” she said, poetically, “the moment a navy bean becomes delicious.”

I wrote that down; I knew we were about to co-create a poem.

Someone asked for her recipe, but she said there isn’t one, officially. So that’s what I wrote. In a manner of speaking.