Berket and the Stars
A day on the boulevards chosen out of ten years of student poverty! One best day out of ten good ones. Berket in high spirits--"Ha, oranges! Let's have one!" And he made to snatch an orange from the vender's cart. Now so clever was the deception, so nicely timed to the full sweep of certain wave summits, that the rumor of the thing has come down through three generations--which is relatively forever!
Berket and the Stars - context Summary
Student-years Memory
William Carlos Williams recalls a remembered episode from his student years: a single joyous day amid a decade of poverty when Berket, buoyant, attempts to snatch an orange from a vendor. The poem treats the act as charmingly staged and almost theatrical, then notes how the anecdote’s retelling has magnified it into a multigenerational rumor, emphasizing memory’s tendency to enlarge small, vivid moments into legend.
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