“Stranger on the Bus to Sacramonte” – a poem by Marianne Peel

July 16th, 2026

photo by Marianne Peel

Stranger on the Bus to Sacramonte

Come, you have a hungry look
and I will feed you.
Let us gather cross-legged,
a winter picnic on the parlor floor.
I will spread quilts I have stitched,
a higgledy-piggledy patchwork.

I have mint tea from Morocco,
A smoky tea from Guizhou terraces in China.

Come, you have a hungry look.
I have lemon scones in the oven,
almost ready. We will slather them
with clotted cream and blackberry jam.

While you sample this sweetness,
I will place earphones on your head.
You will hear Copeland’s Appalachian Spring,
Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto #3,
Handel’s Water Music,
and John Coltrane’s jazz.

Between each entrée of music
I offer soup: a spoon-worthy broth
of cream and gnocci, of chicken and onions.
I offer you spanakopita –a luxury
of spinach and filo dough, of feta and dill.
Let the butter ooze down your wrists,
slicking your elbows, even, with this creamy goodness.

For dessert, we will devour carrot cake
layered with cinnamon cream cheese.
We will lick our plates together as we listen
to Beethoven’s 9th Symphony,
the fourth movement,
where a chorus magically appears
on the stage, a tympani that resounds
in places no other composer dares to go.

___

After having taught middle and high school English for 32 years, Marianne Peel is now nurturing her own creative spirit. She has spent three summers in Guizhou Province, teaching best practices to teachers in China. She received Fulbright-Hays Awards to Nepal (2003) and Turkey (2009). She participated in Marge Piercy’s Juried Intensive Poetry Workshop (2016), and her poetry appears in Muddy River Poetry Review, Belle Reve Literary Journal, Jelly Bucket Journal, among others. She is also a veteran musician, playing flute/sax and singing in various orchestras, bands, choirs, and jazz bands her whole life. She has published three full length poetry collections; No Distance Between Us, and Singing is Praying Twice are from Shadelandhouse Modern Press, and her latest collection, Untamed Arabesque, is from Act of Power Press.

Watch Paavo Järvi and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen perform the 4th movement to Beethoven’s 9th Symphony at the Beethovenfest in Bonn, Germany, 2009. [DW Classical Music]