let them eat cookies

Some of the students today are turning in extra credit poems. I gather that they are supposed to begin "We shall eat cookies."

I've read over the few that were turned in to me today. The first was a great dark piece about how we are destroying ourselves through consumption of what we know is bad for us. After that one, the good natured and/or silly ones paled. I wondered what I should write, if I were to participate in this assignment. I would like my poem to refer to something else well-known, and be mature and literary.

My mind started going off in different directions. The first was French Revolution, let them eat cookies, misunderstandings, rich vs. poor. The second, though, was my favorite in the end.

I like poetry. I like short poetry more, because I feel like those poems should say more than they actually say. That their words should imply something beyond that which is written, and draw attentions and connections within the reader beyond explicit statement. My usual gripe of a poem, even if it is very, very good, is that it's too long.

So I wrote a cookies poem, and it is thankfully, quite short.

We shall eat cookies
For we have heard
That man cannot live by bread alone.
We shall eat cookies
And for a time, be happy and full.