This Is Just to Say
- At July 17, 2004
- By Bob Howe
- In Blog Posts
6
I bought some black plums at the grocery store a few days ago. The first one I has was a little woody and without much flavor. Tonight I had two more, and they were perfect: juicy, with the perfect combination of tartness and sweetness. One of those little gifts from the universe.
This Is Just to Say
by William Carlos Williams
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the iceboxand which
you were probably
saving
for breakfastForgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so coldWilliam 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.
couscous1021
I used to have that poem written down everywhere- in books, on walls, etc.
I don’t even like plums. But I love this, I love this feeling. A perfect moment of decadence, I don’t remember how I first read it but it gave me some unexplainable warm feeling that has not faded, and I just got it now!
Maybe I just love food.
Enjoy those plums.
admin
What I like about the poem is that it perfectly expresses the ambivalence of relationships: “I love you dearly, but these were plums!”
baldanders
“Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams” by Kenneth Koch
1
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.
2
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.
3
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.
4
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!
admin
*Laughing*
Okay, that’s a bit more ambivalence about relationships than I was thinking of. On the other hand, I was reading your blog on polyamory, and I have to wonder if that discussion and this display of ambivalence aren’t connected. : )
In any case, Scraps, welcome to the orchard.
shunn
That’s a terrific poem. I don’t read a lot of poetry, but I know that one because of its appearance on subways in the “Poetry in Motion” series.
admin
Yes, my education was poetry-deficient, too. I did come across this one first in a graduate lit course (one of the few I took), and seeing it on the subway always makes me feel simultaneously the pleasure of recognition, and the sense that there’s so much else out there that I’m missing.