Now is the Time for Pumpkins

We never grew very many pumpkins, and when they did erratically sprout, they were never very big. It might have been because my parents did not think that the soil was quite right, or perhaps because our pumpkins were never like the plump ones some folks buy for carving, but I like to imagine that it was because they had me.

I remember my father tucking me in at night. As I gave him a hug and he prickled me with his beard, he would almost always whisper, "goodnight Pumpkinitus," followed by "don't let the bedbugs bite." Between my squeaks that he desist from the beard prickles, I figured out that my name was indeed Pumpkinitus, and with a childlike acceptance, never wondered why.

Then there were the pies. We were definitely pumpkin eaters when it came to pies, getting excited over the square-freezer-container boxes of pumpkin thawing on the counter. And then there was the fall I discovered that my mother did not like pie crust, and when her brave words were met with the chorus of "me neithers," we ditched the crust for the custard except when company came over.

On those nights when we had all been goofing around and playing and it was getting late and we were all whispering that dad had forgotten what time it was, I always dreaded to hear his remark, "hmmm... I think that some people are going to turn into pumpkins pretty soon if they don't get to bed." And then it was time to slip down the hallway and skedaddle into the covers before he caught us. My father read Cinderella? We never did. It was only years later that I had to giggle at myself for always thinking Dad was just being silly.

I think that is where pumpkinitus came from too--the disease one contracts when the hour becomes late and the eye-lids droopy. So I have pumpkinitus? Or am I Pumpkintus? It is all a matter of perspective. But knowing my dad, he probably looked at his wound-up little goldy-head, saw the child poetically bouncing around a college dorm-room, and meant a perpetual both.



Why I Stay Up Late

Life is good
And I will be the first and last
To part my teeth and say it.
How else could one
Fledge one’s brain with plans
Hatched from
Tender egg shells
And pretend to teach
Them songs they already know
By heart?

You are tired—
But have you tried
Waking at night
Stirred by the swallows
Drinking from your
Birdbath and reminding
You that they are hungry?

In the end I suppose
I don’t want to turn off life
And so keep it on
For the same reason
I rise while it is yet dark.