Two Pie Poems for Julia's 100th

Key Lime Pie by Mary Rose O’Reilly

Commas of lime in sugar and milk,
suspension, mild on the tongue
as memory of being filled,
or if you never were full before,
now is the moment --
be born again,
trailing, for all I care,
Augustine, Ambrose, all of those guys --
Aquinas, sit here, eat this pie.

Each one's longing to feel
a belly round with surfeit sur·feit 
v. sur·feit·ed, sur·feit·ing, sur·feits

v.tr.
To feed or supply to excess, satiety, or disgust.

v.intr. Archaic
To overindulge.

n.
1.
a. ,
figuring out at last
one of the why's we came for:
key lime pie Key lime pie is a dessert made of key lime juice, egg yolks, and sweetened condensed milk in a pie crust. The pie is topped with meringue, then baked until the meringue is a golden brown.^[1] Some key lime pies use other types of whipped toppings or none at all. .

Tumble with me, Augustine,
out of the pear tree of self-hate.
Here is a Buddha-pie your African grin
can barely take in. Here is a radical
homecoming pie. Aquinas,
it runs down your chin.

You will never again
have to be clever or even good.
Taste the green skin of logos
wanting to kiss your tongue.
You are undone, like a child
gone feral feral

untamed; often used in the sense of having escaped from domesticity and run wild.  to smell grass,
murmuring here it is,
all I have longed for
at last, at last.


The Poet's Occasional Alternative by Grace PaleyI was going to write a poem
I made a pie instead it took
about the same amount of time
of course the pie was a final
draft a poem would have had some
distance to go days and weeks and
much crumpled paper

the pie already had a talking
tumbling audience among small
trucks and a fire engine on
the kitchen floor

everybody will like this pie
it will have apples and cranberries
dried apricots in it many friends
will say why in the world did you
make only one

this does not happen with poems

because of unreportable
sadnesses I decided to
settle this morning for a re-
sponsive eatership I do not
want to wait a week a year a
generation for the right
consumer to come along


Writing this afternoon has been a struggle.  Maybe it's because it was already mid-afternoon before I sat down at my desk today.  I've gotten used to putting in my two hours, pen in hand/laptop at fingertips, the first thing in the morning and today an early appointment shifted my writing time so I'm feeling off kilter.  Or perhaps it's because I'm at a difficult point in both of the projects on which I'm working and I'm avoiding tackling the down and dirty writing that is required to move them forward. 

Avis de Voto and Julia Child

I'm blaming Julia Child though.  I think it's her fault I've put what little creative energy I could summon into planning and preparing dinner for this evening.  Although I read this morning that it's the 100th anniversary of her birth (I even bought the Kindle deal of the day, As Always, a collection of the letters between Julia and her pen-pal friend Avis) the thought slipped my mind, or at least I thought it had.  But now that I've stuffed a beef tenderloin and wrapped it like a carnivore Christmas present in bacon and twine, peeled potatoes to mash with a healthy dose of horseradish, and assembled the makings of pesto to go with the summer squash and heirloom tomatoes from the farmers' market, I think perhaps the spirit of Julia somehow wiggled her way into my schedule. 

So the best I can offer you today are these poems about pie-- both invitations to put aside guilt, striving, longing, the desire for approval, and indulge in the sweetness of life.  Hopefully you'll find some time to do just that today, if not for yourself, in Julia's honor. 

I think she'd like that.

"Life itself is the proper binge."
~ Julia Child