LEMON PIE

I struggled ten or fifteen years
To make good lemon pie.
The crust was thin, the paste was thick,
And the meringue was dry.

The crust was thick, the filling thin,
The top was limp and flat!
I thought, I’ve met my Waterloo–
I’ll never master that!

But I toiled on while bitter tears
Fell often on my board.
And now I’ll draw a peaceful breath–
I’ve reaped a rich reward.

I heard the village gossip say,
Today as I passed by:
“I never liked her, but she makes
A perfect lemon pie.”

-Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

I made a lemon meringue pie only once, and wrote about it here: Pie Amusement

You might think from the way I talked about pies ten years ago that I would have made dozens more by now, at least one a month, right? I have not. But, maybe I will this week — haha! I truly have been wanting to bake some kind of dessert so that I can call — or more likely, text — the neighbors and ask them for dessert on one of these long evenings. For me, baking a pie is a monumental event, and I don’t know if I can change my perspective at this stage of life.

This poem is from the poetry collection Songs of a Housewife, but you might be more familiar with the poet as the author of The Yearling. If you’d like to read more about the housewife-poet Rawlings, Sandy’s Chatter featured a post about her some time back, and shared another poem, “Prize Jelly.”