Soda Bread

21st January 2020

I have just read that chocolate ( the dark stuff mind) is good for us. The article tells me one square a day can be really  beneficial to my heart, to my mental health and to my brain among other things. Well, I'd like to know how much better two squares would be and would a whole bar add years to my life.
Ah, no, it's just the one little square that has the benefits . Any more could possibly be harmful.
I don't know about you, but I can't eat  just one square from a bar of chocolate. Much too much temptation involved.

Soda Bread

Warm soda bread sits

In the middle of the table, a round loaf,

a cross creased into it's middle.

The  familiar, sweet, smell, settles

Somewhere in our shared  history,

Buried like gold, In the mists of my memory.

Just Nan and I, bridging generations, 

her soft look wraps me in its love.

Between us the loaf waits on the bread board.

In a white china dish, the butter - kerrigold.

Nothing else would do. 

And a  pot of tea, brewing, under a knitted cosy,

which I knitted in green and red stripes, for her.

Milk too, full cream, fresh from the dairy, in the blue jug.

And a pot of Mrs O'Neil's Jam, made from her own blackcurrants.

Nan cuts the bread into two thick slices

I take one, a  sliver of my grandma

break it in half, place on my plate, gently

I carve wedges of butter into slender slabs 

 I spread each evenly right to the edges

And to finish , a smear of Jam

I watch nan do the same - It is our communion