A PIECE OF CAKE

By Kathryn Stripling Byer

When the young woman called from Charlotte to interview me for her radio program asked, “What is a Laureate, anyway?” as she stands in the heart of her kitchen, the sun sliding into the cornfields, another June day disappearing, another night kindling

I heard my voice hem and haw like a bad line of poetry. I thought I heard all of the Old

North State holding its breath while I struggled its Milky Way stars, and at long last I know how to answer that question. A Laureate

to say something clever, but all I could think of was “lariat.” Then in a moment of quiet desperation, I thought of Laurette, lassoes the Milky Way, word after luminous word of it, holding it out in her hands

who lives just down the road from my childhood home, hands busy sculpting the icing on each side of her Milky Way cakes like a piece of Laurette’s chocolate cake, saying,

Try this! Believe me, You'll like the way poetry tastes!

Camilla native Kathryn Stripling Byer was the author of nine books of poetry and her works were featured in various periodicals over her career. Byer, who first found her voice amid the fields of the family farm, was North Carolina's fifth poet laureate, a position she held from 2005-2009.

Reprinted with permission.

PART O F YO U R H O M E . PART O F YO U R L I F E .