Pancakes

By Craig Kirchner

PROMPT — Who am I today?

I’m 75 today, having a little trouble

waking up, getting up, walking,

finally make it to the Keurig,

and decide to breakfast.

The word goes back to the 15th century,

before that the Old English

was morgenmete, morning meal.

I opt for pancakes - it took me 60 years

to master the art of making.

It occurs these are older than the word,

invented about ten minutes after flour,

which distinguishes the pulverizing Stone Age,

something ground, mixed with water,

kneaded and thrown on a fire.

As I pour the syrup I wonder

if the Chauvet cave artist, 36,000 years ago,

before charcoaling horses, rhinoceroses,

lions, mammoths and leaving his hand-print,

perhaps had pancakes, perhaps on his birthday,

probably not with butter, maple, my guess

would be he was young and steady on his feet.

I’m ingesting the same meal that this pre-

history genius made history with,

on his auspicious day, digesting it with

a similar tract of intestines.

This will not embolden me to sketch,

but it does inspire me that today could be

not only a birthday but a birth of something day.

---

Craig Kirchner is now retired and living in Jacksonville, FL because that’s where his granddaughters are. He loves the aesthetics of writing, has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels, and has been nominated three times for a Pushcart. Craig's writing has been published in Chiron Review, Confetti, Sybil, Main Street Rag, The Wise Owl, Journal of Expressive Writing, and dozens of others. He houses 500 books in his office and about 400 poems on a laptop; these words help keep him straight. More about Craig can be found on Bluesky.