Poem: "Playing with Your Potential"

[ysabetwordsmith]

This poem came out of the May 2, 2023 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired and sponsored by ng_moonmoth. It also fills the "Clean" square in my 5-1-23 card for the Pets and Animals Bingo fest. It belongs to An Army of One series.


"Playing with Your Potential"


Astin watched Darmid
with the children.

Darmid was
a good teacher.

Some of what he did
was baffling, though.

"Why do you let them
play with their food?"
said Astin. "People
always say that's bad."

"Playing with your potential
is like playing with your food,"
said Darmid. "You explore,
you shift things around, and
before long you understand
the colors and textures and
tastes you have to work with."

"Huh," said Astin. "I never
thought of that before."

"Well, I had to think of
something," said Darmid.
"Some of them are reluctant
to try new foods, and others have
allergies or problems with eating."

That made sense. In space, they
couldn't always get food easily,
although it was better now that
Sam the Gardener had gotten
some experience growing crops.

People who would eat whatever
they could get had an advantage
over those who wouldn't, or couldn't.

Besides, Astin was ... curious
about the textures of things.

"So what variety of things
do you have to play with?"
Astin asked Darmid.

"Decorating and
stacking are popular,"
said Darmid. "So we
have cookie puzzles,
and those are good
for matching, too."

The puzzle pieces
were decorated with
different toppings, which
had different textures --
sugar, icing, chopped nuts.

Those actually did fit
together pretty well.

"What about the letters?"
Astin wondered, pointing.

"The letters and the circles
are for the actual games,"
said Darmid. "Children can
spell words, and if they get it
right, they can eat the cookies.
Playing checkers, you can
eat the pieces you capture."

Curious, Astin ran a finger
over the letters. Xe could feel
where white and chocolate dough
had been spliced together to make
the letter shapes in the cookies.

The round ones were smooth,
just different colors of checkers.

"These you can stack into towers,"
Darmid said, offering a plate of
cookie sticks as hard as crackers.
"They're also lots of fun to decorate."

Saff and Rube, a pair of girl-boy twins,
were exploring the tastes and smells.

They had a box of small skewers and
bowls filled with fruits or vegetables
that had been cut into shapes.

As xe watched, the children
threaded the shapes onto
the skewers to make patterns.

"Want to try?" Darmid asked,
offering a tray of meat, cheese,
and bread also in fancy shapes.
"As long as your hands are
clean, it's fine to join the fun."

"Sure," said Astin. The meat
felt slippery and the cheese
faintly tacky. The bread
was soft and spongy.

Xe nibbled a few pieces
to learn the flavors.

They went together
pretty well in any order.

The colors contrasted
as much as the tastes --
pink or white meat, brown
or white bread, cheeses in
orange and yellow and white.

Some of the food was what
they had grown here, some was
synthetic, and some had been
imported from the Galactic Arms.

Astin liked the way that the food
felt in xyr fingers, soft or firm,
squishy or wet or crumbly.

Darmid was right. It
was a good way to learn.

* * *

Notes:

"Playing with your potential is like playing in your food, you shift things around and before long everything on the plate goes cold."
-- Dr. Michael McCain

Playing with food is actually good for people. It's a type of sensory play with many benefits. Explore some fun ways to play with your food.

You can play actual games such as checkers, word games, or cookie puzzles. Shortbread Cookie Sticks Dipped in White Chocolate make good Jenga sticks.

Enjoy recipes for Fruit Kabobs and DIY Fruit Bouquets, Vegetable Stacks, and Easy Christmas Appetizer.   

Comments

[acelightning73]

When someone sculpts a massive Green Man in a tree trunk, made entirely out of chocolate, it's beautiful, but he's "playing with food". But if someone sculpts wood or stone or clay, it's "art". And much of what i do when i decorate cakes could be considered "playing with my food". (After I'd had the cardiac ablation I badly needed, my next birthday cake was in the shape of an anatomical human heart, decorated with candy lightning bolts to indicate the procedure that had given me back the stamina to bake and decorate cakes. Sometimes it takes some work for me to figure out what looks like the thing I'm trying to depict, is edible and tastes good, and is structurally strong enough to make that shape.