Havarti in the Highest

Is it the way the word rolls off the tongue
that delights the senses even before
the cheese is chosen? I'll have Havarti,
I tell this deli sous chef, his knife poised
for a lasting imprint on the block
of buttery goodness about to climax
my roast beef sub. Danish
slices topping 100% purebred
American Angus, garnished with dark
brown English mustard. My taste buds
jealously watch the wheat roll warming,
the cheese bonding and bubbling
while my ears ring with "Havarti!"

Who Planted Those Grapes?

Clipping loaded stems from the bunch, tasting

succulent globes, skins stretched on juiced

flesh, I live only in the moment. Whose hands placed

the cuttings into the moist earth, tended and watered

virgin plants, shepherded creeping tendrils into fruition?

Opening the new jar of olives, I ponder the trees

in a sandy land far removed from the verdant green

of my Louisiana landscape.  The interconnection

between hands that open and hands that plant,

hands that harvest and hands that bottle

provides the link, the connection, establishes

the patterns that reveal our selfhood, our identity

on a plane, plumbed, sheered, consummate,

completely beyond our own finite consciousness,

enigmatic as the patterns of DNA to an ancient seer.

Longing for Cheese

And the women come and go

            speaking of Vermeer.

They wonder why his women

            yearn for cheese. Take

the Girl with a Pearl Earring.

            Her full face shows she's

no stranger to the fat content

            of good Dutch cheese.

Mouth partly open, her eyes

            linger on the plate

just beyond the viewer's eye,

            mouth watering with

the taste remembered over time.

            His full-figured Milkmaid

pours cream and thinks of cheese

            she will add to the crusty

bread in the basket of her table.

            Even the woman, fingers

on the virginal's keyboard,

             in The Music Lesson

can't wait to cut the cheese.