Poetry is to prayer as wheat is to bread. One of the reasons I’m uncomfortable with academic creative writing programs and organized religion is because too few professors or priests have strawberry jam.
**
Joan of Arc ate quince jam before battle as it gave her courage.
I’ve had quince jam and judge it to be fine, but it’s not strawberry.
There’s a Finnish saying: “Sweden is a blueberry, Finland a strawberry.”
How I wander.
**
The soldiers who survived the Crusades introduced jam to France. Many of them were blind. I picture them tramping over hostile terrain, sightless, clutching jars in their arms.