The Perfect Words at the Perfect Time

I feel to share this essay I wrote last September

The Perfect Words at the Perfect Time
Sept. 16, 2006
J. Naegle

Another box is yielding its contents under my unrelenting fingers fueled by my tunnel vision on this project; it’s actually the third box of the day, the others have been relatively easy to disband and disperse, some with treasures long forgotten, photos hastily placed during the last minute rush of packing those many months ago, too many months to count lest I blush at the procrastinating lapse of time in getting them emptied on this end of the move.

Ah, here’s a pair of blue knit gloves to tuck up in the closet for the day when the steering wheel is too cold to handle, which could be never here in the desert, unless I venture out at some obscenely early hour in the heart of winter. I can’t help smiling at the thought, especially since I just lowered the thermostat to offset the discomfort of the afternoon sun beating against the western windows. I don’t care about master planned communities; homes should only face north or south in the suffocating lands where the suns blistering rays relentlessly beat a path to invade available doorways and magnifying windows with rings of fire.

I pick up the paper lying under the gloves. Oh my goodness, here’s Chris Richard’s parody poem on William Blake’s “The Lamb” from the celebrated Songs of Innocence, that sweet gentle poem metaphorically linking the lamb to the Son of God. To appreciate Chris’ renderings, one must know the original where the poet asks questions of the lamb:

“Little Lamb who made thee,/ Doest thou know who made thee? / Gave thee life and bid thee feed / by the stream and ‘ore the mead / Gave the clothing of delight, / softest clothing wooly bright, / gave thee such a tender voice making all the vales rejoice, / Little Lamb who made thee? / Dost thou know who made thee?

In the next and last stanza the poet answers all of the questions:

“Little Lamb I’ll tell thee, / Little Lamb I’ll tell thee. / He is called by thy name, / For he calls himself a lamb, / He is meek and He is mild, / He became a little child, / I a child and thou a lamb, / we are called by his name, / Little Lamb God bless thee, / Little Lamb God bless thee.

I remember so well the day Chris wrote this and I can pinpoint the year of l994 or l995 because we were still at the old school location in the Jewish center on Broadway Road in Mesa, Arizona. We had been working on memorizing “The Lamb,” and I distinctly recall being annoyed at Chris for the minor disturbance he was causing. I was pressed for time and he wasn’t in sync with the rest of the class, but his beaming face stopped my reprimand as he excitedly cried out, “Mrs. Naegle, you gotta hear my poem.”

“Ok, Chris,” I let out an exasperated breath, “let’s hear your poem.”

Christopher proceeded to read:


Little lamb who ate thee?
Dost thou know who ate thee?
Ripped thy flesh and tore thy skin,
Thou once were fat but now art thin.
Blood and guts all spread around,
Not a piece of thee can be found.
Little lamb, who ate thee?
Dost thou know who ate thee?

Little lamb, I’ll tell thee,
Little lamb, I’ll tell thee.
He is not of they name,
For he calls himself the wolf.
He is hairy, he is mean,
He is wicked and obscene,
I am living,
Thou are dead!
Little lamb good eatin’,
Little lamb good eatin’.

The entire class, including the chagrinned teacher who came so close NOT to letting him read the poem, was dissolved into peels of hysterical laughter by the time he finished reading; actually the laughter began at the first line of “Little lamb, who ate thee?”

I’m chuckling as I remember a similar parody on the same poem. It has quickly connected itself through the halls of memory with the same cadence and rhythm, this vague reminiscence of a quip my second son, Cap, made as we were driving by a field of sheared sheep in the mid l980’s. Upon my urging, “Oh children, what poem does this remind you of?” They were supposed to respond, “Little lamb, who made thee?” and then proceed to quote the entire poem, but Cap, about age ten, quickly and cleverly piped up with, “Little lamb, who shaved thee? Dost thou know who shaved thee? / Took the sheers to thy fleece, / didn’t leave a little piece of curly wool to keep thee warm / and from the cold keep thee from harm…” His rhyming trailed off, but left the other children and me in stitches. The tragedy of such cleverness is that it is often obscured by the natural static of being young and immature. I hope I never miss the sweetness of the genius of children.

I smile as I think back on those days at school and remember Chris with his mop of blonde hair and his mischievous grin. A nostalgic sigh escapes from the knowingness of nothing staying the same; everything changes and that is how it should be, but looking back I wish I had not been so caught up in the everyday things of life that I might have been able to catch more precious fleeting moments at school and at home.

I’m so glad I held my tongue that day in the classroom with Chris and didn’t lash out at him for being out of step with the rest of the class; my, how his whisperings do pale next to his clever verse. His young creative mind was bursting with the rhythm of a parody which he knew we all would appreciate. Taken out of context of the class and Blake’s original, it’s really rather violent and gory, but to us it was very witty, intelligent, and we loved it.

The fortuitous holding of my tongue reminds me of another time when my eldest son was about thirteen, some twenty three years ago, and was supposed to be in bed asleep. I was reading late into the night, the only time I ever could manage to read it seemed with five children ranging in ages from thirteen to four, and all of them being home schooled by me. I did value my small pittance of private time at night. Cory surprised me at my door. My initial response was a flash of irritation at being disturbed, but I held my tongue.

“Mom, do you want to hear the poem I just wrote?” He was clutching it in both of his hands. I didn’t, but I was a loving mother, so I answered in the affirmative. Then he proceeded to read:

“Sometimes we tend to stumble and fall amidst our sins,
So God has sent His only son to pick us up again.
And though our sins be great or small from each a lesson’s learned,
And with this lesson go we forth His forgiveness to be earned.
And life can be much easier if one point is made well known,
Our sins need not be stumbling blocks, but only stepping stones.”

I sat there in stunned silence as this precious son melodiously read this poem written from the depths of his young and pure heart. He continued, “Mom, I’ve got another one, do you want to hear it?” This time I sincerely answered yes. He called it simply, “The Minute.”

What a little thing a minute is, yet what magic it doth hold
It’s only made of seconds, but it worth much more than gold.
For it only takes a minute to stop and shut the door,
And it only takes a minute to pick the toys up off the floor,

It only takes a minute to replace worn laces in a shoe
And it only takes a minute to pause and say, “I love you.”
So if we’ll learn to cherish each minute and use each new one found,
In the end we’ll stand before the Lord and wear the victor’s crown.

I shudder to think at how easily I could have missed this moment with this beloved son, had I responded with my initial feelings. I wonder how many times I have forfeited a treasure in favor of the mundane things of life that always seemed so important at the time, but in actuality were fleeting, unmemorable, and most unimportant.

This third box of the day is certainly yielding up some treasures. Since I haven’t the wits to toss and pitch, I must read everything. I’m now holding a paper which is the work of Holly Brooke, my only daughter. We shared office space in our large Arizona home, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to find some of her work in my box.

I feel my throat tighten as I read her writing. It has the ear marks of an assignment for one of her college classes. I can see that it is a rough draft, but it’s precious to me. She confirms the power of the perfect words spoken at the perfect time. This one belongs to her father who in the natural course of being a good daddy gave her permission and encouragement to honor her own unique identity as not only the youngest, but also the only girl in a house full of boys. Holly wrote:

“Nothing is more beautiful to me than music reverberating from the paunch of my piano and the feeling of the ivory beneath my fingertips as they move rapidly across the keys. I go back to the days I spent lying under our baby grand piano as my mother played her repertoire of classical music, and I tried to reach up with my little feet and touch the bottom of the piano and tap to the beats of Beethoven, Mozart, and my favorite, Chopin. I don’t know when the change happened, but I found myself nine years later at age fourteen sitting in tears at the end of basketball practice one day as my father came to pick me up.

On the drive home his words were inspiring to me as I complained about the coach, the team, and not even liking the sport. He said to me, “Miss Priss, what happened to your music and your dancing? I miss the sound of your piano and your violin, and not that I necessarily like your ballet recitals, you are my only daughter and I love the fact that you are good at feminine things. You don’t have to play sports; I have four boys who play enough for the whole family.”

How was I supposed to know that these few words from the mouth of my father would change the course of my life and the events to follow that got me to where I am today? In that moment I realized that I had given up my classical training in the arts to try and impress my father by running back and forth on a court chasing a ball. He, in his profound wisdom, made me realize that I didn’t have to impress him with what I thought he wanted, but that I should do what I wanted, what I was good at, and that happened to be music, art, dance, and literature.

I had totally forgotten about this epiphany in my life until I was reading Women’s Traditions in THE MIND HAS NO SEX, and the words of Christine de Pizan when she argued that “…women’s arts, not men’s, have contributed most to civilizing the world; arts developed by women,” she claimed “have been more valuable to humankind than the works of the most profound philosophers. These arts, whether they be music, gardening, or the making of tapestries all have had a place of importance to the improvement of mankind and the sciences in one way or the other.”

These arts as seen by Francois Poullain de la Barre, “…took as much skill to embroider a tapestry-variegating the color… as it did to engage in men’s sciences, where there was ‘nothing to do but to observe the uniform laws of nature.’’

Dr. William Alexander, from the same text, also argued for women’s arts saying, “…women’s skills-particularly their skills in raising and caring for children-are essential to humankind and should be accorded the same value as men’s.”

Holly finished her writings with this sentence:

“I now know that my decision made eleven years ago to change my path and pick the road less traveled in our family of boys, was the right decision, and I never will be ashamed that my skills lie in music, dance and literature.”


I have to pause and look back over what she wrote. Her father’s words were perfect for her at the time, and now her words in this rough draft of a long forgotten essay, are perfect for me to catalogue in my heart so that I might have them as the song one would sing to a friend when they forgot the words to their own melody.

I came into the market place as an English teacher, her teacher, late in the game when she was fourteen years old, having spent the better part of mother hood as a stay home mommy where the mundane everyday duties of diapers, dishes, laundry, and band aide applications stretched the limits at times of my grip on life beyond the fenced yard. Somehow, for me it was important to be there for them even if it taxed not only the bank balance, but also taxed my brain not to tax my brain….and here, all of these years later, my youngest vindicates my choice with the voice of the collegiate intellectual who said, “…women’s skills-particularly their skills in raising and caring for children – are essential to humankind and should be accorded the same value as men’s.”

I bless the perfect words rendered at the perfect time, and I smile as I remember the perfect words for anytime in a favored verse by William Ross Wallace:

They say that man is mighty,
He governs land and sea,
He wields a mighty scepter
Over lesser powers that be.
But a mightier power and stronger
Man from his throne has hurled,
For the hand that rocks the cradle,
Is the hand that rules the world.

* * * * * * *
Hats off to all of you young mothers.