How bitterness comes so dark green
shaggy bunch of basil I hold in my palm
sharp fragrance not entirely pleasant
like mild cat urine or some of my
snappy friends. Or sides of myself.
Yet so popular, a community
of fans, we crush the leaves
in blenders, fresh garlic,
raw pine nuts, shredded parmesan,
and, of course, olive oil.<\/p>\n
Cold pressed. Virgin.
No frenzy of crushing diminishes
the rich green, all ingredients absorbed,
I ease my blue spatula, blue as
Van Gogh\u2019s bedroom in Arles,
into the first taste. Just as no attempt
to puree takes away the edge,
the savory bitter leaf still bites.<\/p>\n
Dearly beloveds, I hope my poems
somehow may have seasoned
the palette of our shared life.
Please forgive the shady aftertaste
as my elder leafage grows frayed,
tough as I go further into the fields
of golden hay, away from the crowds,
still I write among the crows
beneath a devastatingly blue sky.<\/p>\n
Please don\u2019t thrust me far back
in the fridge as happens to those
last small October batches of pesto,
neglected, where a light fog of must
forms on the once radiant green.<\/p>\n
Louisa Loveridge Gallas<\/em><\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ode to Pesto How bitterness comes so dark greenshaggy bunch of basil I hold in my palmsharp fragrance not entirely pleasantlike mild cat urine or some of mysnappy friends. Or sides of myself.Yet so popular, a communityof fans, we crush the leavesin blenders, fresh garlic,raw pine nuts, shredded parmesan,and, of course, olive oil. Cold pressed. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[28,16,29],"class_list":["post-907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-poems","tag-louisagallas","tag-louisaloveridge","tag-poem","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/louisalovegallas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/louisalovegallas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/louisalovegallas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/louisalovegallas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/louisalovegallas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=907"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/louisalovegallas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":956,"href":"https:\/\/louisalovegallas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions\/956"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/louisalovegallas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/louisalovegallas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/louisalovegallas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/louisalovegallas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}