- 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
This poem is another new one for me. Mom suggested it when I told her it was time for a short poem. I'm not generally a fan of free verse, but as long as it's not overused, it can be forgiven. I think that to qualify as a poem (in my book at least), and not just fancily formatted prose, it has to act like a poem. this one certainly provides us a glimpse of a moment in time, and of a person who's feeling a little guilty--but not really.
I've always imagined this hurriedly scrawled on a piece of paper and stuck with a magnet to the refrigerator. The man who wrote it has gone to sleep and his wife is coming home late.
ReplyDelete-Heather
I remember this from elementary school. There was another one in the same chapter about a red wagon.
ReplyDelete-Mike
When I read your email, I thought, " no : chickens and a wheelbarrow. " So I googled it. I have often wondered what depended upon the red wheelbarrow . . . ?
ReplyDeleteMom
The Red Wheelbarrow
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
-- William Carlos Williams
Ah, yes, that was it.
ReplyDelete-Mike
That's funny. I always pictured that it was a woman, writing the same kind of note to her husband.
ReplyDelete-Doug
It amazes me which poems get people talking
ReplyDelete