Ahhhhh… FOOD, glorious food… so guilty and delicious. Yeah, my own take. There’s more but it’s very random. For some food is just fuel to live. Zach’s mother eats it to live because she’s allergic to MSG and reacts to soy. Try to eat a lot of easy things in the US without finding one of those in it. I cook, but after my concussion I wasn’t allowed to cook, at least until I had to take take care of mother. Now I cook every day. Before… they were worried I would burn down the kitchen or hurt myself. I only set the stove on fire once. But grabbed the salt, put it out and kept cooking. They loved it and never knew until Zach told them. Such an honest child.

But food means so many different things. For some it’s a cultural thing. Others have memories. For me there are certain foods that remind me of my grandmother, but food reminds me mostly of my step-father, the man who I called my dad since he had me since I was like 6. He introduced us to foods we didn’t even know existed. Not fancy or anything. Just not what a lady who worked as a sewer in a factory could afford to feed me, my mother, and two other grandchildren.

I made one of her staple holiday dishes this past Christmas and it turned out great. I don’t think I’d had it for over 35 years. Happy moment. I stumbled across the recipe in my mother’s recipe box, in my grandmothers handwriting. It’s likely 40 years ole A nice find.

OVI POETRY

Ovi is a syllabic/metre poetry form. In this case, Ovi is from India, originating in the Marathi language. The Ovi  has been in use in written form since the 13th Century, but the women’s ovee/ovi predates the literary form by at least the 12th Century.

The Ovi are in general, lyrical folk songs expressing love, social irony, and heroic events. They are written in the following scheme.

4 line stanzas, as few as one stanza and up to as many as you like.

8 syllables or less per line

Rhyming is AAAb. The second stanza would be CCCd. The third, EEEf. And so on. Meaning nothing in one stanza must rhyme with anything in the previous stanza. The fourth line does not rhyme.

Example:

Roly Poly by Judi Van Gorder

The big toothed tot with golden hair
picked up a bug on Sister’s dare,
it rolled into a ball right there
and won her springtime heart.

Notice the rhyming pattern is AAAb or
A
A
A
b

My Attempt

Blue flowers continue to grow,
with the shadow’s making them glow,
giving life to darkness and woe,
dying each year to yet return.