A poetry film directed by Dan Sickles.
Produced by Antonio Santini, Adam Uhl, Dan Sickles.
I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast from Motionpoems on Vimeo.
I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast
by Melissa Studdard
—After Thich Nhat Hanh
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It looked like a pancake,
but it was creation flattened out—
the fist of God on a head of wheat,
milk, the unborn child of an unsuspecting
chicken — all beaten to batter and drizzled into a pan.
I brewed my tea and closed my eyes
while I ate the sun, the air, the rain,
photosynthesis on a plate.
I ate the time it took that chicken
to bear and lay her egg
and the energy it takes a cow to lactate a cup of milk.
I thought of the farmers, the truck drivers,
the grocers, the people who made the bag that stored the wheat,
and my labor over the stove seemed short,
and the pancake tasted good,
and I was thankful.
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This poem is a part of Melissa Studdard’s first poetry collection “I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast”(Saint Julian Press 2014). It first appeared in Dash Literary Journal in Spring 2010). The poem and poetry video is shared here with the permission of the author and Motionpoems. www.motionpoems.com
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BIO
Melissa Studdard is the author of the bestselling novel, Six Weeks to Yehidah and other books. Her works have received numerous awards, including the Forward National Literature Award and the International Book Award. Her first poetry collection, I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast, is forthcoming fall 2014. She currently serves as a reviewer-at-large for The National Poetry Review, an interviewer for American Microreviews and Interviews, a professor for Lone Star College System, a teaching artist for The Rooster Moans Poetry Cooperative, an editorial adviser for The Criterion, and host of Tiferet Talk radio. Learn more at www.melissastuddard.com.
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