Found on Facebook

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Plum is yum
and cherry is cheery
But what part of berry is raspy?

Bananas can be split
or cause you to slip
Apples remind me of fall

I figure a fig is easier to figure
than three meanings
of the word date

A lemon could be worthless
Prune could mean cut
A raisin is a grape
But a grapefruit is not

A peach has a pit
A pear has a core
A nectarine has no neck

An orange has skin and a navel
A pineapple’s not pine or apple
A coconut has no cocoa
A cantaloupe can’t gallop or lope

Mango is tropical
Peachy is keen
A tangerine is an orange
from Tangier

Are crabapples crabby?
Do geese like gooseberries?
If blueberries are blue
and blackberries are black
why aren’t strawberries made of straw?

I don’t mince quince
or wish on a star fruit
I don’t know why pomegranates
have so many seeds

Does passion fruit flirt?
Are elderberries old?
Have you ever poured a watermelon
and drank it by the gallon?

What’s an apricot got
that a kumquat does not?
Have you ever had a kiwi lime pie?

~ Colleen Redmarmalade

I’ve logged in enough hours during my lifetime – fooling around with words, in search of just the right ones – to finally call myself a poet. For many years I would say only, “I write poetry.” To claim to “be a poet” sounds presumptuous, unlike other claims, such as “I am a gardener,” or “I am a mother.” But what other word do we have in our culture to explain one who is so fascinated with language and with using it?

I’m the sort of person who reads a “wet paint” sign, but still has to touch the bench to see if it’s true. I’ve always been curious about the alphabet that way too. I believe that alphabet sounds have properties, like foods have vitamins, plants have medicine and colors have the power to affect our moods. The M…M…M sound conjures a sense of manna, matter or mother. Whereas, the letter G…G…G, when it’s hard, sounds antagonistic, especially if it’s followed by R…R…R (Grrr). Why does an L sound so light and lovely while D seems to say “downward descent”?

I like to play with the alphabet. I notice that the word “slack” has “lack” right in it. (Is slack somehow the plural of lack, the way too many pets become pests?) I notice that silent and listen are made up of the same letters, like note and tone are. I know that coyote is coy, because his name tells me so.

I once met a woman who made sock puppets, not the Sesame Street variety, but matriarchal figures, wise women, and witches. When I learned that her last name was “Weinstock,” I couldn’t help but point out that her name also said “Wise in Sock.” When I mentioned to another woman that if she added a G to her last name, “Robinson,” it would become “Robinsong,” she changed her name!

I believe that our names are our assignments and that there is mathematics to language. If we take a letter away or add another, everything changes. I don’t think it’s a mistake that the word “spell” means to put letters together in the right way, and it also means to make magic.

If you look at the word “universe,” you’ll see that it implies a unifying poetry. If you add one letter to “word” and you get the whole “world.” Why don’t they teach that in school?

~From “Muses Like Moonlight” by Colleen