I PRAISE I-PAD

It’s time to tell you what it means to us

Dick’s I-Pad is often at our table

Rude distraction?  Maybe at times

But this morning redeemed rudeness.

I told husband of a book I had just

Finished (on Kindle.  Are we wired or what?)

Name, Lady of Milkweed Manor,

Main character, Charlotte Lamb,

A pastor’s daughter in early-nineteenth-century

 Kent.  Disgraced her family.

Pregnant.  Much of setting was a

Lying-in hospital in London, with

Milkweed messily in the garden.

Much of the story was of wet nurses

Common at that time, and Charlotte

Became one, a wet nurse.

But oh, the interweaving of milkweed

And milk, and foundlings, and

Compassionate nursing.

Plus the therapeutic medicinal values

Of milkweed.

Then!  Dick said, “During World War II

We went out into the fields during

School, and picked milkweed

‘For the war effort’.”

“What was that about, anyway?”

So he looked it up on his I-pad.

Sure enough, a picture of

School children

Pointing proudly at sacks hanging

Over their heads,

Filled with milkweed floss

That would go to munitions plants

And be used for life preservers and vests

In the place of kapok.

Thank you, I-pad, for starting our day

Fulfilled with new knowledge!

Marilyn Jaeger