Bread and hyacinths

T'is another cloudy, dreary, day in February. Snow showers, or flurries, does anyone know if there's an actual difference, are falling off and on. We're beginning to think about open water and fishing seasons, although it's premature to get this year's licenses. Give us another couple of weeks.

a hyacinth to feed the soul

Photo by J. Harrington

Fortunately, we have a couple of hyacinths in the window well downstairs that have begun to blossom and share their aroma. They triggered a vague memory about an old saying -- hyacinths to feed the soul -- so we turned, as we often do, to an internet search engine.

First we encountered, on goodreads, what purports to be a quote from Mohammad:

“If I had but two loaves of bread, I would sell one and buy hyacinths, for they would feed my soul.” 

The web page was unsatisfactorily absent any additional information about the source so we checked out other leads. The Paris Review yielded a delightful article, Lost and Pound, which explores several variations of a poem, attributable to Ezra Pound, and others, on the theme of bread and hyacinths. We'll share a couple of them. You should follow the link and read the entire article.

Hast thou 2 loaves of bread
Sell one + with the dole
Buy straightaway some hyacinths
To feed thy soul.

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If thou of fortune be bereft,
And thou dost find but two loaves left
To thee—sell one, and with the dole
Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.

These passages clearly are in the vein that "man does not live by bread alone," something many of us too often seem to forget. We're trying to find some sort of sustainable balance between bread and hyacinths in our personal life. The plants need regular watering. The sourdough starter needs feeding on a regular basis. Some days baking bread makes the house smell wonderful, but quite different than a hyacinth's aroma. According to wikipedia, "Hyacinth bulbs are poisonous; they contain oxalic acid. Handling hyacinth bulbs can cause mild skin irritation." However, we discovered that there is a hyacinth bean that, in some forms, is considered edible. There's also water hyacinths, which some suggest may be eaten.

a loaf of Irish bread fresh from the oven

Photo by J. Harrington

Before we began today's post, we had never put hyacinth plants, hyacinth beans and water hyacinths together in the same thought. After our quick reads, we think we'll stay with the idea that bread is to feed our body and the beauty and aroma of hyacinths are, indeed, meant mostly to feed our soul, unless we get very brave and creative. Stay tuned in case we get serious about foraging. Meanwhile, we're pleased to report that earlier today, in anticipation of St. Patrick's Day, we ordered several packages of King Arthur Baking's Irish Bread mix. When baked and dusted with powdered sugar, it's also beautiful enough to feed a soul.

Heaven for Stanley

Mark Doty - 1953-

For his birthday, I gave Stanley a hyacinth bean,
an annual, so he wouldn't have to wait for the flowers.

He said, Mark, I have just the place for it!
as if he'd spent ninety-eight years

anticipating the arrival of this particular vine.

I thought poetry a brace against time,
the hours held up for study in a voice's cool saline,

but his allegiance is not to permanent forms.
His garden's all furious change,

budding and rot and then the coming up again;

why prefer any single part of the round?
I don't know that he'd change a word of it;

I think he could be forever pleased
to participate in motion. Something opens.

He writes it down. Heaven steadies
and concentrates near the lavender. He's already there.

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