preservation

and isn't that all an awfully lot
to pack into a jar of tomatoes?

You have to make sure those cans are under a lot of pressure, after all!

Okay so some comments...

I really like the "rolling laughter" bit because there's so many canning instructions where you get water up for to a rolling boil before it counts, so just... having that imagery of the rolling laughter being necessary before it counts? Love it!

My one lone suggestion is this part...

it hasn't all been undone...
look how they keep hold
of yesterday's fruits,
surely the earth will turn again

Feels really... out of voice with the rest of the poem and it feels too explanatory? I think just sticking with the first line as an aside would make it have more punch!

Anyway, lovely poem, alliyah! (Also, we should push for a vegetable genre, yes? )

Hello, hello!

In the early fall, my mother cans our harvest vegetables,
mashing tomatoes into sauce,
and working cucumbers into pickles,
and pushing green beans into vinegar jars -

This is a lovely image! The repeated "and" gives it the feeling of someone watching a familiar process unfold step by step, which suits the ritualistic element later in the poem. I also enjoy how the poem starts seasonally.

I’m a bit unsure about "working cucumbers into pickles," though. It is fitting, but "working" feels less physical and specific than later verbs you use. Since the other verbs give me such clear movements, I think this one could be a little more vivid as well, like that of "mash" and "push" in the same stanza.

and for a moment the prairie grasses sigh
in homestead relief -

I really like the idea here, especially the landscape itself responding to the preservation of the harvest. "Homestead relief" is an interesting phrase, though I had to stop and think about what it meant. I assume the grasses are relieved that the old traditions haven’t disappeared and that the land is still being treated in a familiar way. That becomes clearer in the next stanza, but you could perhaps make the connection more immediate.

I could see other interpretations, as well, so I'm wondering what you intended?

because she tells stories of her mother
while she cans, busy hands, and steaming water,
blistered knuckles, and rolling laughter -

The sentence structure is a little unclear and the metaphor lost me. At first, "busy hands" seems as though it describes the mother who is currently canning, but the list could also be describing the stories she tells. I think this could be smoothed out so we know whether the narrator is watching these things in the present or imagining them in the past. Either version works, but at the moment they blur together a little.

***

I really enjoyed this! I like how you've moved beyond food into preserving stories, family history and a sense that the world still follows familiar seasons. I especially like that the narrator admits this is something they "assume." I don’t know whether the mother thinks about the ritual in quite the same way, and that gives the poem a little more depth to me. It may be the narrator who is packing all this meaning into the jars just as much as the mother is packing the tomatoes. I like how that could be seen as relating back to family, especially fleeting moments with the ones we love.

Towards the middle, I think there could be some more clarity. Some of the pronouns and sentence structures make it hard to tell who or what is being described, particularly around "they keep hold" and the stories of the mother’s mother. That line in particular, it could be the jars, the vegetables, the prairie grasses or the women doing the canning. I do like how there seems to be intentional abstraction with the imagery, but it makes the narrative a little difficult to follow!

That's all I have, but this was lovely! Cheers!

Lipton

and isn't that all an awfully lot
to pack into a jar of tomatoes?

Ahhh you're a genius, alliyah!! I always see my grandmother preparing pickle and I never really thought much about it but this gives so much depth to the whole process, nothing but love <3

i always assume her canning
is more about keeping ritual than vegetable
more about memory than meal-prepping

My goodness, I don't know why this poem made me as emotional as it did, but I love it.