I remember one day when Zoë was a young teenager she and I went shopping at Target. When we were in the housewares department she told me that she couldn’t wait until she had her own apartment. When I asked her why she gleefully told me “because then I can buy cool, colorful plastic dishes.” I can happily report that when the time came setting up her first apartment she asked for some of our pottery for her kitchen. After a couple of moves she now has different sized bowls for oatmeal and ice cream.
Zen Boy
Why do you have
only one bowl?
I asked our son
helping him arrange
new kitchen cabinets
three plates
three mugs
three glasses
one bowl
a red oatmeal-
sized bowl
He smiled
I like
having only one bowl
— Naomi Shihab Nye, in Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners, Greenwillow Books, 2018