Mothers' Day, Remembering

LOAVES AND FISHES

He came home from the sea with boxes of fish in the trunk of
the green Plymouth, as comfortable with the smell of cod and
halibut as we were not, fish fine-chosen for gift and home.
Neighbors came like cats upwind to ask how the trip had
gone, and to carry newspaper-wrapped fish home again.

She baked top-heavy bread in old ovens, flooding home with
the gold smell of eastern Washington wheat, crust-buttered
and throbbing invitation to coffee. They all came to the
oilcloth-covered table like pilgrims; uncles, old men left
over from another generation, and friends out on a drive.

There is someone here with a few loaves and some fishes,
they all said, and they came for the picnic at Gus and
Jennie's place. Some stayed at the table for the last trip home,
and for bread and cod. We grew up on the bench side
of the multitude that was family, on loaves and fishes.

We all ate what we wanted, twelve baskets full, we five
thousand men, and women and children, at the table in
Jennie's kitchen, where Gus brought halibut and cod home in
the trunk of an old green car. How was the trip, we all said,
and Jennie brought coffee, and bread brown from the oven.

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