Growing Vegetable Soup

One board book ends with
Eating vegetable soup, best ever:
“And we can grow it again next year!”

Joe once had me read that again
And again. It’s the next year!
Grow the vegetables for soup again!

Real years have now passed,
And I read this book to another boy.

Joe, today, laughs until he can hardly speak.
“Remember that time you read this
Again and again, as if the years were passing?”

I am amazed that, of all the parts of childhood,
This was one he remembered.

I am amazed that the rapid passage of time
Strikes anyone, even a child,
As a thing of mirth.