"Unexpected" by Tom Darin Liskey (poem)

By Victoria Emily Jones on July 21, 2024

Tanner, Henry Ossawa_The Thankful Poor — Henry Ossawa Tanner (American, 1859–1937), *The Thankful Poor*, 1894. Oil on canvas, 35 1/2 × 44 1/4 in. (90.2 × 112.4 cm). Collection of the Art Bridges Foundation, Bentonville, Arkansas.

Momma used to say
That when Jesus turned the
Loaves and fish
Into a picnic
For those hungry folks
In the wilderness
The God blessed victuals
Tasted like mouth watering
Mississippi catfish
Deep fried in the best store bought meal
Served with a healthy side helping
Of iron skillet cornbread—
Bread so fine that
No one asked for butter or honey
And nary a crumb hit the ground.
She grew up an orphan
In the Great Depression,
Where low cotton prices
And bad weather
Killed farms and families—
Times, she remembered, so hard
That sometimes even dinner
Was a miracle
And prayers offered
At the evening meal
Wafted in the air
Thick as coal oil smoke
In the fragrance of gratefulness.

This poem by Tom Darin Liskey was originally published June 16, 2019, on Kelly Belmonte's All Nine blog. Used with permission of the author.

Tom Darin Liskey is a photographer and a writer of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. A graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi, he spent nearly a decade working as a photojournalist in Venezuela, Argentina, and Brazil. He is the author of the short story collection This Side of the River (2022) and, with Kelly Belmonte, the poetry-photography collaboration Transit (2022), as well as a contributor to The Cultivating Project. He lives with his family in South Carolina.