When you think about it,
eatin’ with ’sticks
is the natural thing to do;
that is, without getting all
sociological about it,
it makes logical sense
to handle your food
with these smooth extensions
of your fleshy fingers–
that way, the hot
is truly cool,
bit by bit making its way
south to your mouth
as you choose
what you chews,
chowing down on, say,
succulent shoots of bamboo
with sticks of bamboo
as you come full circle
in the ecological
sense of things
which makes good sense
and shouldn’t
bamboozle any bambino
with a lick of sense,
a lick of taste,
and elders demonstrating
the social, logical value
of a world not to waste,
slash, stab at random,
not to just scoop around
like so many grains
of surplus and plenty.
Moreover, ’sticks
are never alone–
as in “sticks together”–
as they are paired together
like the very stereo
parts of the body–
arms, hands, legs, feet,
ears, eyes, molars,
nostrils of the nose,
with all of those
working together ricely,
in sync, as we eat…
But wait–What’s missing?
Right–a whole person
does not a society make…
Thus, as any unshaven sage
in a mountain hermitage
will instruct you:
“Man, you need a bowl, baby!”
Which is to say:
“You can’t go it alone!”
And even a hermit
wouldn’t be here
if it weren’t for
’sticks and bowls,
the whole enchilada
of Yin and Yang,
of boys and girls,
of what makes the world
worth sitting down with
wherever you are,
blessing the bowl
of food, community,
collective memory,
creative hermitage,
the grains, the noodles
that wouldn’t have it
any other way:
“Eat us with sticks!”
-Lawson Fusao Inada
