{"id":2082,"date":"2026-07-06T09:38:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T09:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=2082"},"modified":"2026-07-06T21:35:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T21:35:36","slug":"classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=2082","title":{"rendered":"Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
It's a rainy Monday
the kind that cries out
for the oven to be heated.
The type that begs for 
a broken egg or two.
That beckons brown sugar
to leap from supple sack 
to measuring cup.

Muscle memory in lead,
a container of flour 
joins an orange box 
and a \"when it rains, it pours\"
blue cylinder on the island.

Though someone else's kitchen
determined, divining hands 
seek a wee brown glass bottle
from the depths 
of a relative's spice cabinet.

A scan of the fridge door
reveals just enough butter:
one stick salted; one without.
That's alright; fix that in post.

Conjured out of the sighs
of plunging 
barometric pressure,
cookies will themselves 
into being.

Without a 
trusty stand mixer
an audible is called: 
melt the butter;
pour it into bowl.

Crack and whip 
the pastured eggs 
into warmed glass;
swirl the soft dough 
into a glossy canvas
awaiting heaped 
of fresh-cracked pecans
and a tsunami 
of semi-sweet morsels.

And now the hardest step:
roll the dough into batons
in a slick sheet 
of freezer paper;
stow the twin logs, 
the ones that feel 
like drowsy babes,
into the freezer for
a many hours slumber.

After a full, sluggish day,
the magic and science 
of time hydrated 
stubborn flour grains.

Distinct ingredients,
now recognizable as
an American classic:
Toll House cookie dough.

An impatient hand
plucks Batch A 
from the frigid depths.

A red Victorinox 
paring knife
chunks solid mass
into a range 
of rugged mountains.

Place each peak 
onto parchment;
place the tray 
into a hot hearth.

An excruciating eleven
and a half minutes 
separated by glass partition
and then the steaming discs 
repatriate with this side 
of the thermometer. 

Shooing over-eager 
littler hands
away, away, away!
then thwacking larger hands:
Wait! Wait! Wait.

After a nine hour build-up,
this simple proof of love 
sits briefly in hand
before meeting long-awaiting teeth.

Love is a cookie
baking is the language
eating is the kinship
a smile is the thank you.





<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cClassic,\u201d an ode to the humble American cookie, written Monday, July 6, poem 187 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo, “Love is a Cookie” by Diana Ludwick (c) 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2084,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[1558,1154,134],"class_list":["post-2082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2026-poetry-challenge","category-poems","tag-july","tag-monday","tag-summer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2082"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2085,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2082\/revisions\/2085"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}