robert mccloskey, "blueberries for sal"




the inkling

 

 

 

i was older than sal.

she was five or six, i was eight or nine,

well past the age 

of reading "blueberries for sal."

i had no need to read it, 

 

my mother having read it to me

hundreds of times as my favored

bedtime story. i knew every word.

it was the illustrations 

which held me rapt, seemingly 

 

for hours on end, illustrations

of sal's mother, particularly

the illustration of sal

and her mother in the kitchen, 

canning the freshly picked blueberries.

 

i cared nothing about blueberries,

 or sal, only her mother.

i could not tear my eyes away.

to this day a warmth comes my way

when i look at those pages, as i am now.





Poetry by one trick pony The PoetBay support member heart!
Read 653 times
Written on 2015-06-11 at 04:58

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Lawrence Beck The PoetBay support member heart!
This is nice. I remember books like that. I can remember their illustrations. Unfortunately, all but one of them is gone. The one which remains is a copy of Homer Price and the Doughnut Machine. I found it in a used book store, stamped with the name of the elementary school in which I first read it decades before.
2015-06-11


countryfog
I found a youtube reading of this book, it's delightful . . . I've ordered a copy for my grandsons who never go to bed without their dad or mother reading them a story, but this one I'll get to read. I hope their memory of that will stay as sweet as yours, and blueberries.
2015-06-11