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Dear Friends
......AND A HAPPY 50TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY!!!................___
21 June 2007
As this winter solstice, June 21st, goes through its last hours tonight I send to you this poem which I dug up recently for an email I was sending. You and your family might enjoy this little gem as you go about your celebrations this weekend; and so I send it along in celebration of 50 years of matrimony—1957-2007--. As I say I sent this poem in an email to a friend and some of the context of that email was:
“I always liked Roger White's poem "Applesauce"1 and its light, humorous and quite clever comment on sex and sexuality. Roger sent it to me about 20 years ago now when Chris, Dan and I lived in Katherine, one of the main towns in Australia’s Northern Territory, a town of three or four thousand at the time. I was working as an adult educator and getting a good deal of education myself—little did I know.” –Ron Price with thanks to 1Roger White, Applesauce in Whitewash, a privately printed first draft of poems, Haifa, Israel, 1982, p.8.)
APPLESAUCE
I tire, Eve, of innocence,
Let's kiss and grow contented.
Suppose we touched, where I protrude
And you're cunningly indented.?
Oh Adam, what a sweet pastime!
I'm glad that I consented.
Tell me, dear, what shall we call
This game that we've invented?
With half my heart I'd call it love
And not have it repented;
The other half would name it sin
And urge it be prevented.
Had I not led you to the fruit
Guilt would be circumvented.
My punishment's to have my crime
Eternally resented.
Spake the snake:
....p.2/
All Adam's sons are cursed to woo
A maid and gently take her;
But after they've made applesauce
They'll like as not forsake her.
And down the centuries men proclaim:
We'll take the pleasure, she the blame.
Let posterity lament
That mother Eve gave her assent;
In slithering wisdom I rejoice
That she gave birth to slippery choice.
----Roger White---
And so, I wish you both many happy delights on your anniversary and in the years ahead in the evening of your life—with most of your Applesauce behind you.
Ron Price