CIDER DOUGHNUTS

At nine on a Sunday morning
the orchard is quiet, but
as soon as I exit my car
I can smell the sweetness.

I spend too long wavering
over ten kinds of apples,
the red and the green of them
heft and roundness in my palm.

But the best part is the circle
I bite into on my way out the door
scattering cinnamon-sugar
all over my barn jacket.

Crisp and then airy, the hint
of apple cider a tantalizing reminder
of exactly where I'm standing.
I know the blessing should be

borei minei m'zonot, but
I say shehakol because
God speaks these doughnuts
into being one by one

the name of each in God's mouth
like a taste of the manna
that fell like ripe apples
from the tree.

(The blessing one says over foodstuffs made out of grain which are not bread -- crackers, pasta, doughnuts -- is Baruch atah Adonai, eloheinu melech ha'olam, borei minei m'zonot: Blessed are You, Source of all Being, creator of diverse kinds of grains. The blessing one says over foodstuffs which are neither bread, nor vegetables from the earth, nor fruits from a tree, ends instead with shehakol yihiyeh bidvaro: Blessed are You etc, Who created all things with Your word.)

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