Small waves, ripples, a steel basin shines,
a soft sun colored stock clinks clam and oyster
shells, calamari swarm like drunken clouds,
and the kitchen becomes a haven of lost spices
and aromatics, and me, dizzy with the fumes
of roasting garlic and steaming fronds of saffron
and bay, it pulls me in, and I cross the line, drifting,
I reach over and show her the wonders ofwhat
it is that makes me smile.
She smiles, and yeah this is a slice of life.
And I reach into the bowl of mussels, slowly,
ice melting around the shells,
sleek, black ships waiting smell of the sands
and tides of far harbors and straits...
And she turns from the mounds of chopped tomato
and vidalia to the stalks of lemon grass
and deep green Thai basil, and I show her
the way: "Come here, peel away the skin
from the base like this,"
and the room filled with the fragrance
of crushed tangerine and lemon leaves
from the single bulb of lemon grass.
And if I didn't know better I would swear
I was standing in the groves of the Indian River,
but I wasn't, it's just us in the kitchen
with the greens of Mandalay,
with mussels from the heart of Hudson's Bay.
It's just us living the great poem of the world,
where expressing love is expressing god,
turning labor into passion, turning work into love,
and it's really even more than this, this she and me,
it's the way we bring to the table the East and West.
Giving to the guest what the world gave to us.
