Picturing Celeriac
Homer, as journeyman, knew to unearth it,
how the sun’s scarce fingers pulsed the soil
for its life.
*
This creature, pale white, legs folded
underneath it, delivered dirty
in a box.
*
It is a white oak roof boss on the ribs
of the church vault depicting children in the mouth
of a dragon.
*
It fell in with evil and crossed a continent.
It gave every kind of promise and favour
to be here.
*
It came to me bruised, shorn and filthy. Tenderly
I washed it, I pared it down to
show its hollows.
*
Melt the butter over medium heat, add roughly chopped
celeriac, leeks, potato, onion and garlic; sweat then
boil until soft
*
The Mediterranean basin churns to war. People step
over its wild roots; run or be targeted, kidnapped,
tortured or killed.
*
The seasons move and quicken, in the sweep of elliptic force.
The machine comes to dig, to harvest them, they spin
like severed heads;
*
like bobbing heads in the phosphorescent sea
that cry
to make land and safety.
*
Send this bulb on its way with a fierce throw;
from the Helicon river to a new crater
on the moon.
*
The human hands that touched this root
are all connected, each of them laced
with its bacteria.
*
Break bread with me.
Eat with me;
this precious food.
James Bullion lives and writes in Norfolk. He has a Diploma in Creative Writing (UEA) and recently completed the Norwich Writer’s Centre Online Poetry Course with Helen Ivory. He blogs at www.imightwrite.blogspot.co.uk and tweets @imightwrite