“Soup is the song of the hearth and the home.”

Louis P. De Gouy

Welcome to the pub! Mish here as your host.

Autumn has brought a familiar chill to the air in my little part of the world. The trees are now stunning in reds, oranges and yellows. Root vegetables are abundant at the local markets. There is an undeniable sense of hibernation. It’s time for soup.

Soup! What is it about soup?

This bowl of universal comfort food spans across generations and cultures. In northern climates, we often associate it with childhood memories and “warmth”. It was like a soothing hug after ice skating, sledding and building snow forts. I remember small, chubby thermoses, perfect for school lunches. With drippy noses and sore throats, we might connect soup to a nurturing parent or grandparent attempting to cure our cold with a salty chicken noodle variety. We cannot deny the healing and comforting power of soup. It nourishes the body, mind and spirit. The aroma of a simmering pot on the stove appeals to the olfactory sense which we know to be connected to memory and emotions.

So it might be the spicy Posole in Mexico, a hearty bowl of Pasulj from Serbia, a lovely cup of Miso in Japan or the tangy flavours of Rasam from Southern India. In Poland, many find comfort in a bowl of pickle soup called Zupa Ogorkowa! Soup just seems to make everything feel a little better. If you are as obsessed with making soup as I am, you can find the recipes for these and others here.

Today, I’d like you to stir some soup into your haibun. You can write about the creative process of your own concoction or the memory of someone else’s. Soup could be a small detail in a significant happening in your life, a background aroma or the main ingredient of your haibun.

Here is a spoonful of inspiration by poet and author, Penny Harter.

Moon-Seeking Soup

by Penny Harter

Last night when the December moon was closer to the Earth than it had been in years, huge on the horizon, blazing hills and craters, I saw it too late, too high in the sky. Still, I could almost count the peaks that held the sun.

Tonight, after slicing red potatoes, yams, carrots, onions, and garlic into a base of chicken broth; after shaking a delicate rain of basil and tarragon onto the surface and stirring those sweet spices in — while the soup simmered, I threw on a jacket over my nightclothes and ran out to look for the moon. My slippered feet were cold as I searched the sky, wanting to raise my face into white light.

But there was no moon, no glow over the apartment roofs to say it was rising, so I came back in and stirred my soup, raising the ladle to my lips to taste again and again the dark fruits of the Earth.

moon-seeking soup —

my own face reflected

in the broth

~ Copyright © 2010 Penny Harter (Recycling Starlight, Mountains and Rivers Press, Eugene, OR).

Shared with permission.

Source: www.jamarattigan.com

If you are new to the form, your haibun should consist of no more than three tight paragraphs of non-fiction, usually written in present tense, followed by a nature-based, seasonal haiku. The haiku is a whisper or another layer, perhaps deepening the meaning of the prose.

Here’s how to join in:

• Write a haibun in response to the challenge.
• Click on Mr. Linky and add your name, and direct link to your work.
• Remember to include a link to dVerse on your post so others can find us.
• Click on the links to other poets to read and comment. Return to read more as the prompt is open all week.
• Pop into the pub to say hello. We are friendly…..and I have soup.