Hail, morning’s amber crown, my soft delight!

Butter softened into light, yeast in its hymn summoning

small saints of fermentation raising praise in bubbles and air.

Kneaded, rolled, and robed in flavor, you rest within your golden congregation, each coil a testament to patience.

Cinnamomum verum, behold your dominion:

from royal ports and trade winds

to mall kiosk and kitchen counter.

Once the treasure of kings, now cupped in paper boats, still you bear the trace of distance, echoes of far-off harvest and cinnamon hands.

Cinnamon roll. Cinnabon. Cinema star of the pastry display, you gleam beneath the heat-lamped dawn. I breathe your scent and am sent to my grandmother’s kitchen, to holiday mornings where chemistry and wonder tangoed in her Pyrex.

O iced beauty, ammonite of sweetness, shell of the Pleistocene snail glazed in memory! I unspool your spiral to its heart— that tender vortex lined with spice once peeled in Sri Lanka, now baked in Indiana.

I part your twirl and steam ghosts upward in small curves of memorial and sugar. My fingers, like the curling quills of bark,

are glossed in syrup as I taste the world

made merciful. Each bite a soft annunciation,

and all creation tastes of home.