On Top of Spaghetti

 It’s technically spring, and my favourite month of the year, but winter won’t let go of its almost-last grip. The whole family enjoyed a lakeside holiday last week, in a friendlier climate. I got to listen for as long as I wanted to my favourite sound in the whole world: soft waves lapping on a beach. A poem will emerge from this experience, no doubt. Perhaps when spring pushes back in on a warm front.

But for now, some silliness. When I was small my mother used to sing a ditty to the tune of “On Top of Old Smoky” but with the words changed to “On Top of Spaghetti.” Where this came from I don’t know: I have not tried to find out. She thought she was being funny, no doubt, but every time I heard it this song made me cry! Because I felt sorry for the poor meatball.

On top of spaghetti, all covered in cheese
I lost my poor meatball, when somebody sneezed.
It rolled off the table, and onto the floor
And then my poor meatball
Rolled right out the door.
It rolled into the garden
And under the bush
Am then my poor meatball
Was nothing but mush.

Isn’t that tragic? Who comes up with such things? Even worse, my family found it hilarious that this song upset me and sang it over and over. Decades later, here it is, imprinted on my brain, inescapable.

A few months ago, my daughters and I were walking in the summer sunshine. I told them the story of the meatball song then sang it for them. They agreed it was sad (though they didn’t cry) and then in my head I started to compose an alternate ending for the meatball. As we walked home, I sang it for my youngest and by the time we went through the front door she had learned it. I was quite pleased with myself.

I didn't think about the meatball all winter. But today, somehow the subject came up and I was describing my childhood tears to a student. Then - a double tragedy! - I realized I had forgotten my alternate ending, and I never wrote it out. So I sat down and immediately composed another version, similar if not the same, and maybe even better. Here it is, to redeem lost meatballs and remind us of the promise of spring.

On top of spaghetti, all covered in cheese

I lost my poor meatball, when somebody sneezed.

It rolled off the table, and onto the floor

And then my poor meatball, rolled right out the door.

It rolled to the garden, and into the dirt

Then sheltered by daisies, it joined the earth.

Watered by raindrops, it pushed up a shoot

Down into the darkness, it sent a strong root.

In the sunlight of springtime, now what do I see?

My little lost meatball, 

Is a tall meatball tree.

(c) April 2026 Síochána Arandomhan

Links:

Original Writing:

On Top of Spaghetti (alternate ending)

Meditation for the Mountain (February 2026)

A Christmas Palimpsest (December 2025)

Woods (November 2025)

The Flow Poem (October 2025)

Writing about Poetry:

Poetry (outlining my motivations for revisiting the reading and writing of poetry)

Saying Yes, Saying No

How does the made-up get into the real

Other things I have previously written connected to poetry:

The Saints

Poetry Cunningly Made

Meditation for the Mountain

i.

We drove into the mountains at dinnertime

When the sun was beginning her descent

Between the peaks. In the restaurant,

I chose the seat facing high windows

With the view of Mount Kidd, and I set myself

To learn his features. Cliffs piled upon cliffs, sedimentary layers

Dusted with snow. A mountain with a biography of storms.

In spring he will flood the river at his feet, and downstream

It will meet the river that flows through my city.

Now the waiter brings us glasses of water

And a cloud partly hides the summit.

When I sip my wine

The slanting rays of the sun

Break the craggy face into shadows.

Main course

Sees the light fading to purpled blue

Silent forests and snow-loaded cliffs

Gathering the darkness to themselves.

I remember day trips

As a child, how this was the time we left the mountains

Ski trails dimming behind us, car headlights cutting a path

Toward the highway that funneled us

Inevitably toward the lights of the city.

Now, in the soft, fortified luxury of the hotel

I feel almost savage

To stay after dusk, with the audacity

To sleep under the gaze of the mountain.

ii.

At breakfast,

I regain my vigil at the window.

Flurries twist outside

Sun lighting the facets of snowflakes

Like flecks of gold leaf.

Later, we walk the grounds among them

The gusts catching and swinging my skirt.

As the fitful sun comes and goes

I loose a scarf,

Or pull on my mittens,

Tuck a hat into my backpack

or tug it over my ears. 

I dance with the elements

Daring the sun to warm me, dazzle

My eyes where she strikes the snow

But always the clouds shift overhead

The air thickens with snowflakes

And we move in a flattened world,

Bereft of the depth of light and shadow.

iii.

At dinner again,

We are back at the window.

Do we feel slightly claustrophobic by this time?

Your mountain is gone,

My husband tells me. It is true.

Where Mount Kidd should loom, layer upon layer of white

Makes a white darkness.

Near the window,

The white shivers into thousands of snowflakes

Water glass, menu, wine glass

We fall into the rhythm of our weekend

Our conversation the melody, while I watch the sky.

Main course,

The clouds never stop moving.

They are the stories we tell,

I say, and the stories we hear.

Always changing

Tricks of perception

Now a stand of forest visible

Now a single tree.

Somewhere out of sight

In the frigid airs of the distant sky

A wind squall opens a portal

Of purest blue.

Now I see a glimpse of the mountain

Wearing a cloud like a woolly scarf

Now the scarf is tossed away.

A cap of white 

Rests upon the summit

Tendrils of flurries hang like a veil.

Dessert.

Look, the mountain is back,

I say with satisfaction

I claim this as my personal insight

The mountain was always there.

iv.

We have grown restless, watching the weather.

It seems in sympathy,

Our final day dawns silver and gold and azure

You could throw a stone upward

Into the sky, 

And watch it sink forever

Into the achingly blue depths.

We say goodbye to my mountain

At least the side that we were watching,

And drive deep into the valley.

Now mountains leap at us

On every side of the highway

The motion of the car animating the landscape.

The mountains could be austere and cold

Wearing few ornaments of human habitation

But they are alive with memory and anticipation too.

Yesterday's snow dazzles in the forests

And we plunge in like divers

Snowshoes crunching on the veiled earth.

Against the landscape,

We have become story

Movement, a brief improvised dance

For an hour or two.

We are foreground to the mountains' mystery

The woods absorb our conversation

As they have taken in the warmth trails

Of those before us.

When we emerge from the trees

Released again to the highway

The image of the mountain lingers in my mind

Even as the white peaks fade behind me.

Have I left them something in return?

(c) February 2026 Síochána Arandomhan

Links:

Original Writing:

On Top of Spaghetti (alternate ending)

Meditation for the Mountain (February 2026)

A Christmas Palimpsest (December 2025)

Woods (November 2025)

The Flow Poem (October 2025)

Writing about Poetry:

Poetry (outlining my motivations for revisiting the reading and writing of poetry)

Saying Yes, Saying No

How does the made-up get into the real

Other things I have previously written connected to poetry:

The Saints

Poetry Cunningly Made

February thoughts

 I suppose it is time I had a post on my blog that doesn't include the word "Christmas."

January went by in a flurry of activity and New Year's celebrations.

This month, my most immediate goal is to get back in the routine of writing! I think about writing but there haven't been many words on paper.

My next goal is, more writing! Maybe this looks like totally new writing or maybe it looks like re-working and further developing some sections of poetry I have already written. 

In the meantime, here is a link to an essay that filled me with delight and new resolve.

You Have To Be Human by Freya India

I have read quite a few of Freya's pieces, but this is my favourite, and it really gets at the reasons I am still filling notebooks with drafts and occasionally sharing my deeply obscure poetry and essays on this blog.

I do a lot of things with my life: innumerable tasks and roles related to family, work, volunteering, dancing, crocheting, health, fitness. Every single one of those things is easier to talk about than writing, especially writing poetry. I could say, I'm a teacher! or, I'm a mom! or, Look at the new outfit I put together, or, My adult group is workshopping our new dance!, or Look at this cool thing I crocheted! and I'm pretty sure nobody would respond by saying, But why on earth would you bother to do that? That sounds completely pointless!

However, anytime I try to say "I write poetry," or even "I'm thinking about poetry," I feel like the most likely (and logical) response is "Why on earth would you bother to do that? That sounds completely pointless!" 

Of course it starts with my own internal dialogue. Probably several times a day, I have to silently argue myself out of dropping this initiative altogether. If you put me on the spot, I'm not sure I could tell you a single rational reason why I would spend time and effort writing poetry. If we were having a very honest conversation, I would go on to admit that I don't do the other things in my life for rational reasons either. I didn't start dancing or having babies or crocheting because somebody made a really good argument that I should do those things. Far deeper and darker and wilder feelings were involved. But the justifications flow easier. Dancing is good for your health. Volunteering builds community. Family is the basis of society. My job brings in income. Blah blah blah.

So why am I writing poetry again, after a hiatus of twenty-something years? All I can say is I have this stubborn conviction that it's very, very important. Behind this conviction, I believe, is the same sadness and uneasiness that drives Freya to argue for why we must try to remain human.  The blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold, as Leonard Cohen would say. Poetry is what makes me human. The earliest things I consciously remember doing are making up poetry, dancing, drawing and doing handicrafts. Of all of those, poetry has a unique power because it names things.  I embody a creative force when I dance or crochet. But when I write poetry, I speak back to it.

Sometimes I have specific goals for the new year, sometimes I have a theme. I want to have specific goals for this year, and my writer's group is pushing me to actually come up with some. But my theme is going to be variations on "You Have to Be Human."

It feels right!