Lunch (a post with pretensions of being a poem)

Bell-pepper bright red,
goat cheese pure white, pesto glowing
emerald with olive oil. Brown bread
still steaming from the oven.
(Softer than usual: too much water?
Who's to say?)

Japanese mothers strive for three colors on every plate.
I throw together lentil soup, eggplant curry,
grilled cheese sandwich: nothing but brown.

But today's lunch was
fresh, bright, raw,

like this snappy autumn day of leaves still green on the trees,
of snow drifts stubborn in the sidewalk-shade,
of a sky so blue I almost believe

it's still summer, and I'm at home
in California where the clouds retire at noon,
and the joys and pains of these three months are distant
as my memory of the Atlantic, unimaginable
as this wintry cold
during that summer simmer.