Lentils
by abbamoses
A Woman Cleaning Lentils
A lentil, a lentil, a lentil, a stone.
A lentil, a lentil, a lentil, a stone.
A green one, a black one, a green one, a black. A stone.
A lentil, a lentil, a stone, a lentil, a lentil, a word.
Suddenly a word. A lentil.
A lentil, a word, a word next to another word. A sentence.
A word, a word, a word, a nonsense speech.
Then an old song.
Then an old dream.
A life, another life, a hard life. A lentil. A life.
An easy life. A hard life, Why easy? Why hard?
Lives next to each other. A life. A word. A lentil.
A green one, a black one, a green one, a black one, pain.
A green song, a green lentil, a black one, a stone.
A lentil, a stone, a stone, a lentil.
— Zahrad
Zahrad was the pen name of Armenian poet Zareh Yaldizciyan (1924 – 2007).
I found this oddly haunting poem in an odd place, a cookbook. Madhur Jaffrey quotes it in the introduction to the legumes section of her Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian. I thank her.
That Which is Bread 
[…] way to this blog. ¶ Today I looked at my stats and noticed that my most-visited post, by far, is a haunting poem about lentils by the Armenian poet Zahrad. ¶ I can only conclude that many people innocently searching for a […]
I was! I had found it in the same cookbook.