Honeydew

I bought a container of fruit salad at a little deli today.

I was really excited because fruit salad is the best.

You get pieces of every type of fruit

without having to cut it all up yourself.

Mine had cantaloupe, honeydew, kiwi, strawberry, and orange in it.

Except, when I actually opened the container

I felt a little ripped off.

The top looked like a wonderful array of fruits.

But as it turned out,

I only got one strawberry,

one piece of orange,

and one slice of kiwi

which were all sitting there at the top.

The rest of the fruit salad was cantaloupe and honeydew.

So I was a little saddened.

But then I got to thinking about honeydew.

What a wonderfully lovely word!

The fresh softness of morning dew

with a hint of sweetness.

It's the perfect description of the fruit, really.

And I wondered who named it that first.

What ordinary poet linked those words together

to create the most beautiful of compound words,

which would later describe

a good two thirds of my fruit salad.