April is National Poetry Month: A Kitchen Memory

 my mom in her kitchen

I asked my sixth grade students today to explain why they liked poetry. One said " it is like reading a story... only shorter and with better words." Strings: A Gathering of Family Poems is like reading a whole collection of family memoirs... only shorter with stronger images. This anthology illustrates all the strings that tie families together with poems about grandparents, uncles, aunts, siblings, parents, and children to name a few.
Each of us could take any kitchen and conjure up  memories based on sounds, smells, sights, and tastes.

A Kitchen Memory
My mother is peeling an apple over the sink,
her two deft hands effortless and intent.
The skin comes away in the shape of a corkscrew,
red and white by turns, with a shimmer of rose
where the blade in its turn cuts close: a blush,
called out of hiding like a second skin.
Now the apple fattens in her hand;
the last scrap of parings falls away;
and she halves and sections the white grainy meat,
picks up another apple, brushes back
the dark hair at her temple with the knife hand.
The only sound is the fan stirring the heat.
- Roy Scheele