POETRY

The Bridge

by Beth Brown Preston

My daddy’s ghost came to haunt me in the kitchen one evening

while I was cooking a pot of cabbage bean soup. 

Daddy took me aside and taught me an old family recipe:

2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for drizzling

2 leeks, white and light green parts only, chopped

¾ cup sliced carrots

3 cloves garlic, minced

My daddy’s dreams built a bridge to my future. 

Nothing, he said, will be impossible for you to achieve,

no goal too lofty for you to reach. And, as I travelled

across the bridge of my daddy’s desires, I witnessed

every kind of searching person: mothers, fathers, artists,

children, priests or the unholy who never found their way home. 

1 ½ quarts low sodium vegetable broth

¼ cup tomato paste 

2 teaspoons dried Italian herb seasoning

Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Daddy taught me the secrets of the music I found in memory,

as a child clutching the violin case close to my heart, or playing

Monk’s jazz on our spinet piano. That holy music a bridge

into the hearts of those who could not escape their destiny.

1 pound cabbage chopped

1 pinch red pepper flakes

2 (15 ounces) cans of Great Northern Beans

fresh thyme sprigs for garnish

If only they would listen to me, I told my daddy’s ghost, 

they might hear my song at sunset. Might learn

a truth told with fire no one else is speaking out loud

but the prophets, steeped in anger and godlike of wisdom. 

Simmer until cabbage is tender.

Serve warm with cornbread, garnish

with fresh thyme sprigs, if so desired,

and drizzle with olive oil…

Beth Brown Preston is a poet and novelist. A graduate of Bryn Mawr College and the MFA Writing Program of Goddard College, she has been a CBS Fellow in Writing at the University of Pennsylvania and a Bread Loaf Scholar. Recently her work has been recognized by the Hudson Valley Writers Center, the Sarah Lawrence Writing Institute, The Writer's Center, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, PEN, and by Cave Canem. Her work has appeared and is forthcoming in Another Chicago Magazine, Atlanta Review, Callaloo, CALYX, Chiron Review, Hiram Poetry Review, Sandy River Review, Seneca Review, Tuskgee Review, World Literature Review, and many more literary and scholarly journals.