Feeding not Eating

There are pancakes. Thank God there are pancakes.

My father strapped a gun to his hip to pick blueberries in the morning, I believed then he needed it, I don't know now, but still. 

Is this a poem about pancakes? 

Is this the end of fear, is the end of fear the end of hunger.

We are here now together in ways we can barely contain our joy at being. Our hearts are cardinals in the remaining hemlocks, our minds are rushing rivers intuiting the sea. 

We walk fast, shoulders grazing, we ask if we are doing enough. 

We agree yes is not the answer yet.

Is this a poem or an essay. Is it an argument. Will it destroy the universe, should it.

What is love, love holds everything. 

We make love in the bedroom, late afternoon, laughing together after, we are like old black bears sharing a last summer together, happy in a way that is rare in application but not possibility. 

Nothing left over, nothing not given.

The pressure drops, snow is coming. Sparrows take more risks at the compost, the horses trod up from the lower pasture to the run-in. 

Well it is almost time. I tell Chrisoula when I am gone there will still be pancakes and she says yes but still. I think about that while the others sleep and I work out the remaining hindrances to teaching, one of which happens to be death, another how feeding not eating others is the end of hunger.