Cutting rhubarb

11 May 2025

I write a lot about rhubarb. I love the tang of this plant, the uniqueness of it. Most people don’t know about rhubarb—they see the red stalks on a farmer’s stand and they think it’s some weird celery. One of the reasons I bought my homestead is because the prior owners had a bed of established rhubarb.

This year, the weather’s been wet and my primary plant (which is divided from last year!) comes up to my chest. And this is after a hard frost nipped a third of the plant. Anyway, I’ve started to harvest, for crisps and stewing and for making bitters. I came to know and love this misunderstood deliciousness because of my mother. Since today is mother’s day, here is a poem I wrote some time ago about rhubarb.

Mother Memory

Cutting rhubarb in the rain,
the mottled leaves 
thick with mud and slugs,
I wonder if these five plants, 
robust now, will stand 
another season
in this shaded corner.
 
If not, next spring
my husband will surprise me,
bearing rhizomes, golden
gifts, then plant them
so my garden will be 
as my mother’s, and her 
mother’s, and, perhaps, all 
our mothers’ before.
 
Later, like my mother,
I’ll slice the stalks 
into chunks for pie. 
Mine has strawberries,
though she says
‘ruins the rhubarb’,
so she’d make sauce
and eat from the pot,
still warm, spoon
clanking against the sides,
a sigh of a smile
trespassing her face.
 
In her eyes, my mixed fruit 
splendor makes me a bit 
of a rebel; she taught me well.
But tendering these stalks,
making the pie,
heralds me a holder 
of apron strings,
honoring our history
unmarked with words
or trophies, and therefore,
all the more important.
 
I wonder how my daughter
will make her pie

Happy Mother’s Day to all who guide others to grow, to learn, to appreciate rhubarb in all its splendor. Peace…