What It Means to be a Baker (poem)

• The subtleties of the dough
  I dive my hands right in and I mix it around, there's no avoiding the messiness of life
  There's no avoiding the cleansing afterwards
  I need my fingers to be use able

• I need them to be presentable
  And like a cat I have a slight aversion to grime in places

• Dough is sticky by nature, but we can trick it using a layer of flour,
  We can fool the bread with water and oil too
  This is my way of warning you that we head into a world of opposites
  That only art can reconcile

• Thin barriers are all that keeps me from continual ruin
  I must continually replace the barriers in order to remain clean
  I must also continually clean

• It's a dance that takes a little bit away each time
  Each time I remove the grime
  I lose a little bit of mind

• Peace of mind is what people want
  Although some are looking for the perfect loaf
  There's a balance to be struck, between wet and dry
  Let's keep the moist in the middle, and the crisp on the outside

• Opinions differ on the texture of life
  And when the barriers melt
  We remember our bliss
  And recede into texturelessness

• I'm talking about direct heat
  An enclosed chamber of steam and pressure

• The heating chamber must either be terrifically precise
  Or a rough hewn tomb, for the burning bones of a forest giant

• I am in favour of the latter
  Because I love the woods, and even in death the trees speak to me
  Their loneliness could never leave my heart

• I lather my hands
  To remove the dough batter
  I notice the scars and the burns
  I notice the tiny dough balls clinging my arm hairs
  Later that day I will painfully pull them off
  And take away a sick pleasure in that small discomfort

• It's a pleasure to be rid of something
  So every day I take away
  Every day I let you go
  And my heart breaks

• Every day I make something new and full of life
  And then I feed it to the horizon of strife

• We can bare so many things into this world
  From the womb of our hearts
  And the details of our mind

• And when they are born into this world
  We choose either to coddle them and en train them
  To a way like ours
  Or do them the cruel kindness of being abandoned
  To their own emptiness and soul

picture courtesy of the Leeds Street Bakery