This is just to say ...

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

If you ever sat through a high school English lit class, you probably remember that poem. And if you went on to a liberal arts college, you probably did everything you could to forget it after an hourlong deconstruction of it. (Short version: Three stanzas, 12 lines, imagist, concrete picture, deeper meaning, unanswered questions, sensory language, domestic relations, nature of forgiveness. See? I've just saved you thousands of dollars in tuition.)

I plead guilty to being one of the millions who rolled their eyes every time a WCW poem came up in class. Who cares who ate the plums in the icebox? And honestly, does so much depend upon a red wheelbarrow, glazed with rain water, beside the white chickens?

At the time, I thought not.

Over the years, though, I came to appreciate Williams' poetry. I chalked this up to maturity, to the deeper appreciation of language and imagery that comes with age. No one, I thought, really cared much about poetry in his youth.

Then came Elijah. And once again, I am forced to reconsider what I always assumed about little boys.

Yes, he's rambunctious, and fidgety, and often downright squirrely. Then, out of the blue, he'll stun me with a surprisingly sophisticated drawing or a request for me to read him poetry or to put on the HBO "Classical Baby" poetry show.

Which is how I came to find these on the refrigerator door one morning:





Don't those plums just look delicious?

So sweet, and so cold.