Rice Cakes

Three eggs with bright orange yokes

from chickens who range the ranch:

we cooked too much rice for last night's

stir fry and cut too many vegetables

stir them in and soy sauce of cauce

Wind blows the aspen trees beyond the window

They bow and twist their leaves.

A steller's jay lands on the high deck

explores, then flies. The cat wishes

rapidly and intensely for an open door

Stir, drop into a hot frying pan, cover.

National Public Radio gives me guitar picking

better than I can achieve, yet,

though I didn't know how to build good rice cakes

until I was thirty-five

brown rice is as essential as nutritional yeast

Dark clouds slide from the highest peaks

and conspire toward the plain, the wettest year

since we moved into these Rocky Mountains.

The garden waits for better weather to grow

waits for sunshine that bakes the days

until sunset is a relief

that first moment of coolness

eight thousand feet up the mountain,

when sunset spreads molten colors above the earth

Turn with the spatula when dark brown bottom

spews steam through volcano of molded egg.

Step over and shut it off

before it can give us news

because news of warfare in the world

and hot rice cake don't mix well.

Wind blows in the windows. Steam. Smell of soy sauce

and all this food. The vegetables still crunch.

Eat from the cooling side, pursuing steam.

Sun breaks through the clouds.

Birds of a dozen kinds sing a dozen different songs

in early afternoon's mountain wind.