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| Image source: China Highlights |
On Calvin Trillin’s “Have They Run Out of Provinces Yet?”
Published in The New Yorker, April 4, 2016
Maybe “province bagging” is a thing, foodies
like tourists collecting cathedrals.
No wonder the ancient countries
and their children
take offense at our forgetting
these places are sacred,
these dishes are mothers.
May we all—all, no matter
our birth, our skin, our standing—
remember to open our souls,
let them expand with each site or bite.
Let us be pilgrims,
let us repent of devouring,
learn to savor.
Lee Ann Pingel has lived in Athens, Georgia, since 1994 and works as a freelance editor and writer. She earned a bachelor’s degree in creative writing from UC San Diego and holds graduate degrees in political science and religion from the University of Georgia. Her work has been published in the anthologies Motif 2: Come What May from Motes Books and Crossing Lines from Main Street Rag, as well as in The Fib Review, Plainsongs, TheNewVerse.News, Contemporary Haibun Online, and other journals.