In sixth grade (my god that was long ago) we had to select and memorize a poem to recite for the class. Naturally I went to my dad and asked for help picking something out. He showed me a number of books he had, one of which was a collection of poetry edited by Dunning, Leuders and Smith entitled Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle . . .. I never returned this book. From it I selected the title poem, which I memorized and recited for the first time for my class, no problems with memory, but rather quickly due to my nervousness. Since then I have recited this poem for people numerous times, at church talent shows, for friends, at family gatherings, for theater classes etc. This was sort of my first performance. It led to about four years of involvement in school and community drama companies. It was an important part of my formative years. It was my favorite poem for a very long time, and I think it probably still holds that place, though by no means the best poem I have read it earns its place through shameless manipulation of nostalgia and familiarity. Shameless nepotism.

Here it is (and sorry for the crappy formatting in the middle here. it's supposed to be the same stanza, just indented. stupid html):

Reflections on a Gift
of Watermelon Pickle
Recieved from a Friend
Called Felicity

During that summer
When unicorns were still possible;
When the purpose of knees
Was to be skinned;
When shiny horse chestnuts

(Hollowed out
Fitted with straws
Crammed with tobacco
Stolen from butts
In family ashtrays)

During that summer--
Which may never have been at all;
But which has become more real
Than the one that was--
Watermelons ruled.

Thick pink imperial slices
melting frigidly on sun-parched tongues
dribbling from chins;
Leaving the best part,
The black bullet seeds,
To be spit out in rapid fire
Against the wall
Against the wind
Against each other;

And when the ammunition was spent,
There was always another bite:
It was a summer of limitless bites,
Of hungers quickly felt
And quickly forgotten
With the next careless gorging.

The bites are fewer now.
Each one is savored lingeringly,
Swallowed reluctantly.

But in a jar put up by Felicity,
The summer which mabe never was
Has been captured and preserved.
And when we unscrew the lid
And slice off a piece
And let it linger on our tongue:
Unicorns become possible again.

by John Tobias

I think I had some sort of prescience at the time for gravitating to this poem. It feels like all my childhood moments were spent in this one vignette of watermelon. Well maybe not all, but watermelons were important. One summer day after 7th grade or so my friends Julie and Marri and possibly Caren, and I had a sleep over at Marri's house, and her parents purchased a watermelon for us. We gorged ourselves eating probably half of the large fruit among us. Then we took the remainder of the watermelon, and a metal Louisville slugger out into the street out in front of the house and pitched (increasingly smaller) chunks of watermelon for each other to shatter with the bat, clearing the road when the occaisional car would pass. Eventually all the pieces became too small for pitching and we took the bat into the bathroom and washed it off in the tub. I also very recently purchased a book on Yoga in large part because one of it's appendices encourages you to go out, purchase a watermelon, take it out somewhere with concrete and smash it open.

So kids, I also encourage you to, at some point in your life, spend some time smashing watermelons up. I'm sure its good for you. And hurling it at the pavement is a perfectly respectable way to open the fruit for your enjoyment. I know. I read it in a book. (A different one. Some novel. The south, plantations, hot summer sun, fresh waterful watermelons. yeah.)