Twins

I mentioned last week I've been feeling particularly uninspired this fall when it comes to poetry.  I even checked out a poetry book from the library last night - but I didn't particularly like his poems.  Rather depressing.

This morning, I read Wynken, Blynken and Nod to my younger two children in school.  I decided to glance at the other poems we have read and found Twins.

This poem made the three of us laugh when we read it.  When I glanced at it again this morning, I was reminded of my friend Beth, whose Wonder Twins have just turned four.

My grandmother was a twin, I have twin boy cousins, and I lived in constant fear with each of my pregnancies that I would have twins.   A few months ago, my friend Dawn and I were sitting at her kitchen table, discussing her newly-discovered pregnancy.

"I'm afraid I'll have twins," she told me.

"Don't worry," I said.  "I had that fear as well.  I'm sure it'll just be one baby in there."

I spoke too soon.  Way too soon.  Dawn and her husband are not only expecting twins, but they found out last week, they're expecting twin boys.

I think they should name one of them John.  Don't you?

Twins

Henry S. Leigh

In form and feature, face and limb,

I grew so like my brother,

That folks got taking me for him,

And each for one another.

It puzzled all our kith and kin,

It reached an awful pitch;

For one of us was born a twin,

Yet not a soul knew which.

One day (to make the matter worse),

Before our names were fixed,

As we were being washed by the nurse

We got completely mixed;

And thus, you see, by Fate's decree,

(Or rather, nurse's whim),

My brother John got christened me,

And I got christened him.

The fatal likeness even dogged

My footsteps when at school,

And I was always getting flogged,

For John turned out a fool.

I put this question hopelessly

To every one I knew -

What would you do, if you were me,

To prove that you were you?

Our close resemblance turned the tide

Of my domestic life;

For somehow my intended bride

Became my brother's wife,

In short, year after year the same

Absurd mistakes went on;

And when I died - the neighbors came

And buried brother John!

Poetry Wednesday