The Energy of Kneading

Where does this strength come from,
these hands turning flour and water
into something that will feed us tonight?

From the plum I ate an hour ago,
from my neighbor's tree—the one who marches
beside me, who knits dog sweaters,
who held the hand of a boy
who'd never seen a plum tree before.

From the avocado at lunch, passed
from one neighbor's tree to another neighbor's hands
to mine, payment for biscotti
she remembered loving. She who messages
asking for an onion, and it always,
always appears.

From the peach, tree-ripened, given
after a backyard party where summer
stretched on forever the way it did
when we were young—
juice dribbling, laughter, sunshine
like a cloak we all wore.

But my hands are only half the dance.
There are the farmer's hands in this dough,
the invisible microbial elves beneath the soil,
the miller, the cashier, the one who felled the tree
that became this rolling pin,
a gift from my mother-in-law's hands.

The breath of clouds that turned to water,
the sun that blessed every fruited tree,
the generosity moving through a neighborhood
one kind act at a time—

Tonight, I taste it all
in my roti, still warm,
the whole web of us
on my tongue.