Just To Say

This is Just to Say At first glance, a reader might see William Carlos Williams’s poem This is Just to say as a note left to possibly a loved one as an apology for have eaten the plums that were meant for breakfast. But in all actuality, Williams is using color, texture and temperature to describe plums that has been left in the refrigerator for use later on by someone other than the one who has eaten them. As I read this poem I could feel the touch of the cold, sweet “they were delicious so sweet and so cold.” (Williams) plum hitting my own lips as I was about to take a bite out of it, just as the writer might have imagined the reader thinking as he wrote this piece. I also picture the icebox, “I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox”

This may be why the first word of the poem, which “I” is the only word other than “Forgive” is capitalized (had it been my husband who had eaten the plums he might have capitalized all of the letters in forgive). He is truly asking for forgiveness and if he is anything like my spouse he knows that I can only remain mad at him for a few moments and that there are more plums to be picked and eaten for a later date. This is the stuff of life. We eat plums or chocolate our spouse might have been saving. We forget to take out the trash until we are reminded for the third time. We cook together, eat together, and we live together bound together by each other’s faults and strengths and we apologize and go on with life. The poem is not written like most poetry I am used to reading or writing for that matter. There is no rhyme to each stanzas and it short and to the point. There is a pattern to his writing that can be seen in every other line. Every odd line has three words in it and every even line has two words in it except for the seventh line. Why he chose to only use one word there I am unsure of, maybe it is because he knew that his wife was “saving” the plums and that he should not eat