by Peter Morley

 

Shall I compare thee to a London smog?

Thou art more green and more leguminate.

Pea soup by name but made from flesh of hog,

Mum-made soup needs no sell-by date.

 

First mother’s milk then soup ambrosian,

Ingredients gathered from pig and garden

By thrift and love, by mother chosen

To nurture, nourish, sons to harden

 

To work the fields or feed war’s alacrity

When some hidebound minister or knave,

Finds some reason of state or vanity,

To condemn our youth to early grave.

 

Long as men can breathe, mothers will weep

And pea soup will sustain until they sleep.

 

©Peter Morley, March 2016