Ah, it’s Spring and time for Spring-cleaning. (Happy Belated First of May!) When I was looking into the freezer to clean it, and saw the containers of long-deceased, unidentifiable food items, I remembered what my mother always said about leftovers: “They want eating.” I feel that I am being a Good Housewife when I store leftover food. The problem is that afterwards, we forget to eat it. So, here is a wee bit of silliness about that.
IT WANTS EATING, DOES IT?
“The pie from last night wants eating”,
says Ma, as she looks in the fridge.
But surely last night’s leftovers
can't articulate a whinge?
“They can not wait another day”,
she says of the brown bananas.
But I doubt that fruits have worked out
how to express impatience.
“That stew wants using up, today”,
she cautions, like she’s prescient.
But it neither wants, nor doesn’t,
'cause stew, Ma, isn’t sentient.
“If it's not eaten, it's wasted”,
like food can be driven to drink
at thoughts of the garburator
grinding it up in the sink.
My mother knows just what to say,
(as though food actually has brains)
to guilt everyone in the house
into eating the remains.
- Poemlet by the Bear of Little Brain
What is it?
This one consists of five quatrains (or stanzas), with each stanza having eight syllables in the first three lines, and seven syllables in the fourth line. The rhyme scheme is ABCB, DEFE, etc., which means it is an unbounded or ballad quatrain. Ooh! Fancy that.
In case you’re not familiar with the term, a “garburator” is a Canadian word for a small waste disposal unit that’s built into a kitchen sink, and which noisily grinds up food scraps when you run it. The goop then gets washed down into the wastewater pipes. If you’re not careful, it can seriously clog up your kitchen’s plumbing.
SEVEN CIRCUMSTANCES 
Ah, it’s Spring and time for Spring-cleaning. (Happy Belated First of May!) When I was looking into the freezer to clean it, and saw the containers of long-deceased, unidentifiable food items, I remembered what my mother always said about leftovers: “They want eating.” I feel that I am being a Good Housewife when I store leftover food. The problem is that afterwards, we forget to eat it. So, here is a wee bit of silliness about that.
What is it?
This one consists of five quatrains (or stanzas), with each stanza having eight syllables in the first three lines, and seven syllables in the fourth line. The rhyme scheme is ABCB, DEFE, etc., which means it is an unbounded or ballad quatrain. Ooh! Fancy that.
In case you’re not familiar with the term, a “garburator” is a Canadian word for a small waste disposal unit that’s built into a kitchen sink, and which noisily grinds up food scraps when you run it. The goop then gets washed down into the wastewater pipes. If you’re not careful, it can seriously clog up your kitchen’s plumbing.
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