This is the time each year when Flo (my mom) would get out her ceramic Christmas bowl and fill it with ruby-red anise candy for the holidays. Smart woman, that Flo. The spicy taste of the hard candy was not terribly appealing to us kids,which meant we didn’t sneak it when she wasn’t looking, and it lasted throughout the season.
This is our second holiday season with out Flo. We miss her, but her spirit certainly is still with us. Here’s a poem my nine-year-old great-niece Floey wrote in her great-grandmother’s honor.
A photo from a few years back — Flo is looking over Floey’s order sheet for Girl Scout cookies. Love ’em both.
Anises
As the sweet taste of licorice
Melts in my mouth,
Memories come back to me.
Ones of my great grandmother
Who always smelled of flowers and bleach
With her silvery white hair
Neatly curling on top of her head.
Oh, the joyful memories anises can bring back,
Even if some are never
going to come back for real.
So I’ll just have another anise.
By AnnMarie Florence Czerwinski
4th grade
Love ’em both, too, and love AnnMarie’s poem.
What a great poem. You must be very proud to have another writer in the family.
I am!
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Fourth grade?!!! AnnMarie is truly talented.
…and she doesn’t even mind it that I call her “Floey”!
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WOW!! FLOEY!!
What a bee yoo tee full tribute by a Great Writer.! I’m sure you Great Grandmother Flo is reading it from Mt. Eternity and beaming with pride. Look forward to more of your great writing.
Wanda B., Flo’s friend, who misses her too.
Thank you from Floey’s mom, and Flo’s granddaughter. We are all missing her very much, and the poem is just such a nice rememberence. XO, Janet
This is FLOEY. Thanks so much for the nice comments. I miss her too?
How exciting to hear from the poet herself! This is your first comment to the “Safe & Sound” blog, right? Your great old Aunt Beth hopes there will be many more comments –and many more poems to come.
Beautiful poem and love the photo. How great for AnneMarie to have many memories of her great grandmother. Hope to see more poems.
Yes — with her birthday so close to Christmas, I expect the holiday season will inspire her…
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This is a lovely addition to the literature of the gustatory sense. Look at what Proust produced by recalling those madeleines! Congratulations to Floey.
Ah, yes, Prous tand those madeleines. Imagine what Floey might come up with if she wasn’t limited to the space on this blog…!
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What a lovely tribute.
Yes, and she came up with the idea to write it all on her own after the family had been to the Sycamore Pumpkin Festival and stoped at a cady store there — the candy store sold, guess what? Anise.
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What a brillant future writer for a four year ,Foley I look forward to more of you Lovely poems Marion Jackson
Beautiful poem. Anise brings back memories for me too of a cookie my grandmother used to make, my dad sometimes makes, and I have made a time or two not very successfully, called a springerle. Good stuff.
Gretchen, so good to hear from you. Keep trying on those springerles…
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