Mark Strand - Pot Roast lyrics

I gaze upon the roast, that is sliced and laid out on my plate and over it I spoon the juices of carrot and onion. And for once I do not regret The pa**age of time. I sit by a window that looks on the soot-stained brick of buildings and do not care that I see no living thing—not a bird, not a branch in bloom, not a soul moving in the rooms behind the dark panes. These days when there is little to love or to praise one could do worse than yield to the power of food. So I bend to inhale the steam that rises from my plate, and I think of the first time I tasted a roast like this. It was years ago in Seabright, Nova Scotia; my mother leaned over my dish and filled it and when I finished filled it again. I remember the gravy, its odor of garlic and celery, and sopping it up with pieces of bread. And now I taste it again. The meat of memory. The meat of no change. I raise my fork in praise, and I eat.