The Art Of Baking Cookies For Strangers

I have been thinking

about how my mother

would bake cookies for strangers

Always with a smile

vintage cookie cutters

and love as sweet as sugar

“How can we love those we don’t know?”

I’d ask. She would reply,

“Just as we can hate what we don’t understand.”

She would look up from her ball of dough

into a pair of fresh blue eyes

not yet tainted by the world

“Some people don’t appreciate the effort,”

she’d say, “In a factory in a city,

someone made these chocolate chips.”

“Before the flour became a powder,

someone planted the wheat,

tended to the crops.”

“People don’t stop to think

and appreciate the effort.”

“They just bite into the delicacy.”

I have been thinking

about this a lot lately –

the lesson she taught me

Perhaps that is why I enjoy

the little things, so much,

because I appreciate time

Beauty and effort take time

in nature, in craftsmanship,

in ourselves –

Pretty faces fade

skin wrinkles

hair turns gray

But I still have those vintage cookie cutters

my mother’s smile

and her love as sweet as sugar

So today, I will give thanks

to a farmer, appreciate the effort,

and bake cookies for strangers