Today on Ethical ELA’s Open Write, Britt Decker shares a beloved C.S. Lewis quote: “Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.’” She invites participants to share “quirky, unusual, uncommon things you do, believe, or say and turn the list into a poem… starting with the line ‘I can’t be the only one who’…”

To begin with: I have loved Lewis since I was ten years old and first landed in Narnia. I have a shelf of his books. When I read Britt’s words about Lewis, I echoed his own: “What! You, too?”

And so I keep that as my title…

What! You, Too?

I can’t be the only one who

would rather write than speak

drinks more black coffee than water

puts pepper on popcorn

is enchanted by abandoned houses
in various stages of falling down

left my Christmas tree up
until February this year
simply because it was beautiful
and looking at it
made me happy

barely dips in social media anymore

follows murder cases daily
for the latest developments

loves my Grandma name (Franna)
better than my actual given name

looks for hawks and herons
on my drive to work

grieves over the blue heron
not having been at a certain pond
in weeks
(please be all right)

savors the harsh rattling
of cicadas in summer
(heartsong
in the background orchestration
of my life)

senses the presence of my father
in the fragrance
of fresh-mown grass

thinks best and sees solutions
in the dark morning hours
before I’m fully awake

journals my dreams, to be awed
by the constant presence of birds
and the recurrence of
vivid green

The original sign from The Eagle and Child (at CS Lewis’ home, The Kilns). #TXinUK. david_norman. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.