Sappho Pie

The Poetry Dictionary, 2nd Edition, describes the Sapphic stanza as “Quatrain in which the first three lines contain eleven syllables and the forth line contains five syllables...The fourth line is called an adonic…The adonic effectively punctuates the stanza.”  While I owe a gratitude debt to the writers of the dictionary for introducing me to Sappho, there is one extremely important issue- where the Poetry Dictionary is lax. They missed it, completely. They left out that I absolutely love it. I really really do.  I even like the sound of the word “adonic.”

     Wikipedia says that, “Sappho was an Ancient Greek poet, born on the island of Lesbos. Later Greeks included her in the list of nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for certain about her life. The bulk of her poetry, which was well-known and greatly admired throughout antiquity, has been lost, but her immense reputation has endured through surviving.”  (And, I would have liked to have asked her out)
     Did I mention that I like Sappho?  Yes, I do.  So as often as a poem lets me, I write Sappho.  I am always delighted when the Sappho stanza presents itself as it did with this silly poem about pie:


Pie

Now don't get me wrong, unless you think you must,
but pie is great— good as most manias get.
For how long do I crave pie? Long as it lasts.
  Pie is for liking.

One sweet day, I would like to be like a pie.
I'd try hard to be good—as good as first-rate—
just like pie. And then pie and I could hang out.
  I would so like that.

I seem drawn to a warm-on-window-sill
pie—temptation for wee mortals in passing.
And though I could be pie in a frozen box,
  hot's still my first choice.

O how long till I knead the dough of summer?
When to lick spatulas of autumn and spring?
Then where should I set the ovens of winter?
  I dream and I dream.

But then I wake up from this feeling stupid.
I could never be a pie. I'm a mere man.
Pie is the pie. And I'm anything but pie
  —far from scrumptious.

So, I will fade away into un-pie-dom—
dessert-less. Yet, eating entelechy cakes.
Tell pie that I still like it. I always will.
  I am just that way.