"Ja-ack, get out of the cookies."

My grandmother's best friend was Pauline Degarmo. My dad and his siblings knew her as Auntie Pauline. She didn't have children of her own and doted on them when she came to visit. A published poet, she wrote under the name Pauline Degarmo Wilkerson.

In The Window of Prayer, the publisher prefaces the book with these words:  'Pauline Wilkerson's poetry is filled with gentle surprises. Her eye and ear are extremely sensitive to places, to atmosphere, words and tones of speaking, but this exactitude does not narrow her vision; she evokes the intimacy of a shared past; she writes not only of religious experience but of the small events of her days, described with reverence. Her feeling for children is revealed in the many poignant poems she writes about them.'

Another of her works is titled There Is No Rhyme for Silver.

She was a prolific poetess with a gift for taking an ordinary word and weaving a poem around it. A popular guest at ladies' afternoon teas, she sent everyone in attendance home with an original, hand-written poem themed on the word they had suggested. She must have dreamed in AABB couplets.

This evocative poem, simply called Shopping, was inspired by her friendship with my grandmother and her intimate knowledge of my dad when he was a youngster.

While shopping at the dimestore

Just the other day--

I'd gathered up my parcels

And started on my way,

When I saw a boy looking at cookie jars:

And this is what he did--

He carefully inspected them

Lifting up each lid.

When asked if he found one

He wanted to buy

This I heard him say,

"I want a nice gift-

For my mom--you know--

It's for Mother's Day."

The clerk said, "A cookie jar's real nice,

"I'm sure she'll be surprised."

Then he looked at her so skeptically

With doubt in his big green eyes.

"I don't think any of these will do;

For they all have lids that rattle.

When I sneak a cooky now and then--

I don't want the jar to tattle!"