The National Poetry Writing Month 2026 prompt is Write
About a beloved relative
And unbidden my memory leapt back to 1965
That is when I met my cousin Doree and her brother Craig Meyers in the tiny town of Oxford, New York, where my aunts Zilpha and Bernice (pronounced BURN-iss) lived
And Doree was a little taller than I was and she and I hung out and picked currants for pie and had nice stretches of easy conversation
She was nice
But then she disappeared for most of a day
And then I saw her across the vast back yard and she told me that my brother Harold thought it would be funny if she avoided me
But she found that she didn’t want to avoid me
And that made my ten-year-old heart lurch with happiness
So we were friends and parted friends as Mom and Dad and Harold and Brian and I took off to go further upstate, to Clayton, new York, and then a cottage on the St. Lawrence River and Thousand Islands
And I never saw Doree again but there was occasional news and I came close to writing her a letter but was too reluctantly shy
The last I had heard of her was she joined the Navy
..
And I have just read her obituary
She died just four months ago
“Doree Bernice Meyers Harrold passed peacefully on October 19, 2025, surrounded by love and prayer. Raised in Endicott, New York, she was the daughter of the late Harry Lyman and Claire Scarlett Meyers. She is survived by her brother, Craig Meyers, and his three children; her two grandsons, Ethan and Andrew Thomas; her sister in Christ, Rita; and her beloved niece, Allison. She was preceded in death by her son, Jason, who passed away in December 2011.”
A wave of regret and sorrow is on its way. I never wrote her
“A meaningful influence in Doree’s early life was her great-aunt, Zilpha Aylesworth Bowers, a devoted teacher and mentor who passed in 1993 and helped shape Doree’s love of learning, service, and independence.”
Aunt Zilpha had suitors but never married. She sent me, knowing I was an aspiring artist, a book about my illustrator relative Franck Taylor Bowers. Later she convinced me to pay her another visit, saying “It is later than you think.” My brother Harold and I went to see her in the late 80s
“During her military career, Doree received numerous awards and commendations, including the Navy Achievement Medal (3), Good Conduct Medal (4), Naval Reserve Meritorious Service Medal (2), National Defense Service Medal (2), and the Armed Forces Reserve Medal (2). She was transferred to the Fleet Reserve on January 1, 2001, marking the culmination of a lifetime of dedication, service, and patriotism.”
Deftly, economically, he plucks a tomato from the bin and positions is precisely, stem side down, in the chute just as his driving hand propels it through the slicing blades
His guiding hand plucks the slices from the far end and in the same deft motion his guiding hand’s thumb flicks the top slice into the salsa cambro
And the rest of the tomato fills a gap in the half-full heatsealable bag
The crowd cheers with gusto
But the judges hold up disappointing numbers
They noticed the bottom slice with its tiny but stigmatizing dot had gone into the bag too
The crowd makes a sympathetic noise
Between the ears
Wherein the Tomatoman’s Olympic exploits are imagined
And crowd and arena alike fade
As the commissary prep cook
Fishes the bottom slice
Out of the bag
The author gratefully acknowledges James Thurber and his “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.”
