chocolate foibles

The cabin pantry is stocked with goodies, and loving to explore, I poked around the first day here. Thai noodles, canned goods, soup, mmm.... chocolate! I spot a chocolate toffee bar. You should know better than to leave me alone with chocolate. I peel the wrapper and the chocolate is light in color, as if it's been around a while. No bother, I don't mind old chocolate, I think. I take a bite. Mmm... love toffee. I look at the bar and notice something crawling on the bar... worms! Oh lovely, I am eating maggot-infested chocolate. I run outside and spit it out. Then rinse my mouth. Throw the bar in the garbage. Rinse mouth again. Brush teeth. Pleh! Ah, well I should have known... it seems a metaphor somehow.

Today I made my first foray out to town, the village of Abiquiu a few miles down the road. Georgia O'Keeffe's old home is there, and I stop at a few places to browse. At one place I stopped there was a O'Keeffe postcard with a quote of hers about Pedernal the flat-topped mountain in this area -- I got a kick out of it "It's my private mountain, it belongs to me. God told me if I painted it enough, I could have it."

So I stopped at the store to get cranberry sauce and stuffing and there at the counter was chocolate. Despite the earlier chocolate foibles, how could I resist? It was packaged like a love letter "love poem inside" it read and "XOXOXO" Crystallized Ginger in Dark Chocolate. So I bought it. On the way home, I nibbled. Just a little bit I said to myself. Its a huge bar, I'll eat a bit now, a bit for later. I love crystallized ginger... Yummy. So what does my love poem say? What does the universe have to say to me about love? (I'll tell you what it says, it says you ate the whole darn bar and that chocolate is gonna make your butt get big)...

My love letter from the universe is from one of my favorite poets, John Donne. From "The bait" pub 1896.

COME live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines and silver hooks.

There will the river whisp'ring run
Warm'd by thy eyes, more than the sun ;
And there th' enamour'd fish will stay,
Begging themselves they may betray.

When thou wilt swim in that live bath,
Each fish, which every channel hath,
Will amorously to thee swim,
Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.

For thee, thou need'st no such deceit,
For thou thyself art thine own bait :
That fish, that is not catch'd thereby,
Alas, is wiser far than I.
The sky on the way home from Abiquiu 11/23/05