How to Stuff a Pepper by Nancy Willard

-Baby Belpepper growing in my garden yesterday-

How to Stuff a Pepper
by Nancy Willard

Now, said the cook, I will teach you
how to stuff a pepper with rice.

Take your pepper green, and gently,
for peppers are shy. No matter which side
you approach, it's always the backside.
Perched on her green buttocks, the pepper sleeps.
In its silk tights, it dreams
of somersaults and parsley,
of the days when the sexes were one.

Slash open the sleeve
as if you were cutting into a paper lantern,
and enter a moon, spilled like a melon,
a fever of pearls,
a conversation of glaciers.
It is a temple built to the worship
of morning light.

I have sat under the great globe
of seeds on the roof of that chamber,
too dazzled to gather the taste I came for.
I have taken the pepper in hand,
smooth and blind, a runt in the rich
evolution of roses and ferns.
You say I have not yet taught you

to stuff a pepper?
Cooking takes time.

Next time we'll consider the rice.

From:  "Cries of the Spirit, A Celebration of Women's Spirituality" edited by Marilyn Sewell, Pages 202, 203

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My newest anthology of poetry, "Cries of the Spirit, A Celebration of Women's Spirituality" edited by Marilyn Sewell.

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I'm so glad to be back to Blogland.  I MISSED YOU ALL!!!  I felt like I'd lost a whole village full of friends while I was offline!  I hope to visit everyone and get caught up by this weekend.  Thank you all for your comments.  I read them all and cracked up when I saw the tomato perfume recipe.  Believe you me, I plan to try it out.  It just might make me rich and then I can open a used book store and give Tarot readings and sell coffee, books, cats and exotic Tomato perfume.  I'll have several black cats milling about as my one female cat just give birth to 3 black kittens in my closet.  Anybody want a black cat?  LOL!

I took my 14 year old bookaholic grandson to the local library sale last week.  (I'm passing along my best tightwad secrets to him, one at a time.)  Our library has a sale twice a week and most of the books are priced at a quarter or fifty cents.  It's truly a godsend for a tightwad bookaholic such as myself.  I call it good book karma....There are books culled from the nine library branches and books that are donated to every branch from individuals.  We're after the donated books.

I gave him a crash course in how to 'work' the sale.  First, you quickly look over the books on the big center table as they are newest books.  Then you pick up any books that look new whether hardback or paperback and put them in your stack.  Hardbacks must have the dust jacket and be in good shape.  Then you peruse the books on the shelves, again choosing any that look newer.  The next thing you do is check the publication dates to make sure the books are less than 3 years old and make sure there is no writing in the books. Discard any that are book club books or library books unless you want to keep them.  Pay for the books.

Next, we throw our haul into my truck and boogie on down to Hastings Book Store and sell the books.  Hastings buys and sells used books, CD's and movies and I've got their buying system down to an art form.  (At Christmas one year I made almost $200 in one trip).  Last week we paid $2.50 for our books at the library sale and sold them for $22.50.  I had a $5.00 off coupon from the Sunday paper, so we were in the black for $25.00.  I have to say that my grandson was astonished and amazed at his Grammy's talent, especially when he got 6 new Naruto books 'free'. 

I managed to sneak in the anthology of poetry shown above.  It's an awesome book and has most of my favorite female authors in it, many that I've shared here.  It's one of those anthologies that just keep on giving.  (I saw it used at Amazon, but it has a different cover if any of you go to look for it).  I highly recommend it.  It's going right next to my other two favorite anthologies, "Staying Alive" and "The Best Erotic Poems from 1800 to the Present".

We came home extremely pleased with ourselves.  Since school is out, he said he planned to raid the library sale twice each week and teach his Mom my system.  There's nothing like a good deal!

While I've been offline I've been attempting to relieve my life of some clutter and have also been hunting down some important papers.  It's an ongoing job due to my system which is to open a drawer, pull out the contents, then spend the next 2 days perusing the photos, cutting out stuff from the magazines for use in my altered books and then finally discarding the junk after sorting.  I may get done before I'm 60 years old.   For instance, last week I found a little box holding my oldest daughter's baby teeth.  Awwwww, right?  NOT!  She'll be 37 in November!!  I called her and asked her if she wanted her baby teeth.  She was laughing so hard I couldn't tell if she said yes or no, so I put them back in the little treasure box. 

I could go on and on for hours, but it's thundering and I'm praying it turns into a real rain storm.  We've had a drought of sorts here with little or no rain for many weeks.  I've had to water my garden almost daily.  (The heat index today and for all next week is predicted to be 105 degrees!)

Wishing you rainbows, sunshine, blessings and love,

~*~ Marion ~*~

"Do you have doubts about life?  Are you unsure if it is worth the trouble?  Look at the sky: that is for you.  Look at each person's face as you pass on the street:  those faces are for you.  And the street itself, and the ground under the street, and the ball of fire underneath the ground:  all these things are for you.  They are as much for you as they are for other people.  Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing.  Stand up and face the east.  Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky.  It's okay to be unsure.  But praise, praise, praise."  From:  "No One Belongs Here More Than You Stories by Miranda July", Page 11

A decoupaged page in my newest altered book.  (Many thanks, Carmen, for the buckets of inspiration, and for the materials to get me going.  You rock!)