storied food

stories become prayerswhen we eat the storied food

and know the garden that the beets are from
the hands that planted the seed and
those that saved the seed

and know the fish's stories of nets and hooks
the deer's fate and the tired hands that brought it home

...

it's only since industrialization
that we've become isolated and our prayers necessarily anonymized
to give thanks to those who've prepared this food is to forget those people

so let's define local in social and spiritual terms - of experience -
so that our prayers can be expressed as stories once more

as we know our food we become more able to know the land
and with that embodied knowledge we become more ready
for our own death, knowing that throughout our embodied life
we consume the land
and in death, the land consumes these bodies