Putnam Weekley
putnam
ode to the leaf
Grape leaf. In one season you inhale enough gas to swell a heavy cluster of sugar drops, also known as grape bunch. Grape is the farmer's darling. Why? Because men are easily distracted by round shapes and sugar.
Men celebrate vintage wine and you, leaf, pour everything into it. In the fall you are exhausted, little more than structure and the exquisitely bitter flavor of means. And if that were all, you would deserve your own minor botanical god. But that is not all.
When it is late, and the grapes are all crushed or pecked by birds or wilted with fungus, you, leaf, are gathered by women in east middle places, to be boiled and brined, and (laboriously) filled and folded, with dill and rice,
... and a few raisins - forgotten thirsty children coming home to your embrace.
Woman's weary hands and back summons a more enduring fruit. And you, leaf, are its skin. Tucked in the pot, you allow just enough moisture to penetrate and swell the starchy berry to bite size.
This is a technological miracle, the scientific insight of generations, born by women, taught, defended and practiced on the fabric of life on the edge of the middle.
Talk. Ask.
Vietnam wants grape leaves too. Why? Why.
Men celebrate vintage wine and you, leaf, pour everything into it. In the fall you are exhausted, little more than structure and the exquisitely bitter flavor of means. And if that were all, you would deserve your own minor botanical god. But that is not all.
When it is late, and the grapes are all crushed or pecked by birds or wilted with fungus, you, leaf, are gathered by women in east middle places, to be boiled and brined, and (laboriously) filled and folded, with dill and rice,
Woman's weary hands and back summons a more enduring fruit. And you, leaf, are its skin. Tucked in the pot, you allow just enough moisture to penetrate and swell the starchy berry to bite size.
This is a technological miracle, the scientific insight of generations, born by women, taught, defended and practiced on the fabric of life on the edge of the middle.
Talk. Ask.
Vietnam wants grape leaves too. Why? Why.