Thursday, April 12, 2012

In The Kitchen

Kitchens, libraries, and gardens are some of my favorite places. I love kitchens because I associate them with nourishment on multiple levels.
Perhaps the World Ends Here
By Joy Harjo


The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

read the rest
Kücheninterieur, 17th century
by Unknown

Interieurszene
by Gustav Köhler

Chimney sweep
by Firs Sergeyevich Zhuravlev (1836–1901)

by Denis-Pierre Bergeret (1846-1910)

Old Man in the Kitchen
by Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre (1714–1789)

Kitchen Still-Life
by Frans Snyders (1579–1657)

In der Klosterküche
by Adolf Humborg

La Cuisinière Hollandaise
by Gerrit Dou (1613–1675)

Allegorie der Küche (Allegory of the Kitchen), 1616
by Franz Clein


7 comments:

BPB said...

Great old pictures, it must have taken some time to find all of them

HWY said...

Wonderful pieces...though the La Cuisinière Hollandaise *really* caught my eye.

I love kitchens, too...there's something about the aromas associated with them that touch deep in the human core.

Linda B said...

Tabatha, I love this poem, have never seen it, so thank you for sharing it & the pictures. Kitchen tables do elicit such feelings & memories, but this seems more than that, at the core of what is our community, our family. I love "It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women."

jama said...

Love all these kitchen paintings! The poem is one of my favorites, one of the first I shared for Poetry Friday back when I first started blogging in 2007. :)

Author Amok said...

"In the Kitchen" is one of my favorite Harjo poems. Beautiful.

Amy LV said...

This poem is new to me, and I am incredibly grateful that you shared it and I found it today. You chose such beautiful images to go with these words, and I love our kitchen table even more now. Thank you! a.

Amy LV said...

This poem is new to me, and I am incredibly grateful that you shared it and I found it today. You chose such beautiful images to go with these words, and I love our kitchen table even more now. Thank you! a.