People who were salt of the earth.
Folks who only spoke in salty language.
Olives. Cured meats. Pickled beets.
Drinks full of salt – martinis extra dirty,
and margaritas with a thick salt rim.
When I was younger, she’d take us to the sea.
Held our hands as she walked us to the water’s
edge, all the while talking about salt & water.
Salinity. How rocks on land dissolve in sea
and become salt.
How rainwater that falls erodes the rocks.
How those small drops of salt laden dissolve
are carried away to the river and stream then
ocean. How time concentrates salt into this
soup, then again, heated through the gulf floor.
We can taste what once existed in the salt.
We inherit what’s found in the water.
And every swallowed mouthful is mineral,
miracle, taste, birth, and demise.
Salt could buoy or bloat a body and a soul.
My mama was never big on bottling up salt.
She favored the letting go.
A liberal sprinkle on the food, the brine
of shrimp, mudbugs, and blue shell crab.
The dash of salt over the shoulder,
its superstitious spill over the feet–
Saints preserve us, she’d say as if saints
carried salt shakers for our souls.
Too much and not enough.
Mama taught that revolutions past
were built on salt.
Also blood. Also tears.
Both are also where salt can be found.
So when we cried and when we bled,
she reminded me that there is no waste
of salt.
We find it at the water’s edge.
