Mom & Me Five Archive

...Mothering Mother. As I was finishing the book, I recalled a poem I first read when I was in junior high:

    This Is Just to Say
    by William Carlos Williams

      I have eaten
      the plums
      that were in
      the icebox

      and which
      you were probably
      saving
      for breakfast

      Forgive me
      they were delicious
      so sweet
      and so cold

William Carlos Williams, "This is Just to Say" from The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Volume I, 1909-1939, edited by Christopher MacGowan. Copyright © 1938, 1944, 1945 by New Directions Publishing Corporation.

    I found the poem in an anthology in our school library. I was so thrilled with it I looked my best friend up in the library and insisted that she read it.
    As we sat silently side by side at a formica table contemplating the poem, she whispered the following joke to me: "What do you get when you run a bird over with a lawn mower? Shredded Tweet."
    We both exploded into laughter and were excused from the library for the rest of the period. Her reaction to the poem, her in-exchange offer and being kicked out of the library for laughing strengthened our frienship beyond measure. Somehow, as I close this book, I feel as though I've just spent yet another intimate session in the library with Cynthia, sharing thought provoking poems, silence, horribly funny jokes, laughter and a touch of scandal.
    More...
    ...later.