I long to dine from your cauldron;
to be surrounded by the steam of good things cooking,
to know that the basic needs of body and soul
are being tended to in your care.
To be wreathed round with the savory scents
of roasting meat and baking bread,
the sweet scents of cake and pie and pastry.
It is good to know that none who dine in your hall
go away unsatisfied,
and to understand that it is your essential nature
to nurture, to guide, and to guard.
To sit at your table, to dine from your cauldron,
to converse with you over a meal
is to know that you care.
Benjamin Franklin once said,
“Beer is proof that the gods love us
and want us to be happy.”
(I think you would have liked him, by the way).
But I think, instead, that we know you exist
and want us to be happy
when we sit in company with you
over a slab of roast and all its accompaniments,
and drink of your mead,
and listen to the laughter at your jests,
and feel the warmth of your hearthfire around us,
and know that we have come home.
I long to one day dine from your cauldron.
All Their Voices 