Memories of foolishness

Today, April 1, always reminds me of my mother. She loved a good joke and every year without fail she would substitute salt for sugar in the sugar bowl and every year my father would fall for it and be furious with her. But she would just laugh and do it again the next year. (I know, I wrote about this last year, but it continues to amuse me, like it did her, every year.)

It reminds me of her also because the plants are just beginning to push up out of the ground. I see some tulip and maybe some daffodil and hyacinth leaves just barely visible. (I don't know yet what has happened to the crocus.) She loved her garden. I once wrote a circular poem, one that could be written in a circular form and read from any point. If my memory serves me, it went something like this:

my mother who was secretary to chrysanthemums and planted the hyacinths to bloom after the daffodils in her garden they were my mother who was secretary to chrysanthemums in her garden………………