My poem “Green Tomato Chutney” was just published by Silver Birth Press in their Spices and Seasonings Series. It’s one of my favorite poems, written in real time as I was making my yearly chutney — always one of my favorite fall activities. Here are more of the poems in this wonderful series.

Green Tomato Chutney

Each fall (always by serendipity)
I find green tomatoes at the farmer’s market.
I could order them, of course,
from the Amish in the last stall on the left,
but that would take away the magic.

Picked hastily before first frost,
they nestle with the Brandywines and Early Boys
and take me by surprise.
I smile, my weekend planned, and buy six pounds.
Come Saturday, I’ll make chutney.

Then another sortie through the stalls.
All the parts must be fresh picked—
peppers, patent leather red,
rose-streaked Gala apples,
chubby garlic bulbs,
currants round as BBs,
bunioned ginger toes
and raisins, withered gold.

My basement yields an oddment of jars
and the large blue pot that waits for this occasion.
I whet my favorite knife,
find cutting boards and colanders
and blues on the radio.
The tunes remind me of hard times, when canning
meant peach jam for toast in winter,
and women wore aprons.

I put mine on
(a gift from my husband before he knew better),
wash vegetables, and start to work.
I pare and core and chop and mince,
humming with Muddy Waters, Bessie Smith,
peeling the next apple, and the next.

The blue pot’s almost full—
a kaleidoscope of harvest.
Next comes sugar, tawny with molasses,
then spices—cumin, cinnamon, cayenne,
sea salt, nutmeg, cloves—
riches Marco Polo sought, now
housed in tins at Kroger. I add malt vinegar
and set the blue pot on the stove.

Chutney needs its own heat—
too high will scorch a day’s work;
too low, and it will turn to mush.
I set the flame just so, and change the music—
now conjuring a sultan’s rapture
with a favorite concubine who
doesn’t disappoint, for soon
aromas like a dance of veils, exotic
as Tangiers, fill the room and whisper
secrets of the oda.

I fill the sink to wash the jars,
dry them on white linen towels,
put water in a roasting pan to boil,
once more attend the chutney—
handmaiden to my lady’s whims—stirring,
steeped in fragrance as the liquid turns to syrup,
as raisins plump and currants soften.

Alchemy achieved, at last the chutney’s ladled
into jars and bathed—
a purifying rite.
The blue pot’s washed, its task complete.
The jars come out with tongs
to rest again on linen towels—
three rows of five to give to friends
and bring the Silk Road to our table.

I pour a cup of tea, listen for
the soft, inverse pop, pop of lids
sealing in the fantasies.

First published in Loyalhanna Review