"Summer Reading" poem published in YCN

 

The table on my deck is a perfect reading spot
sun filters softly through familiar trees
birds twitter, chirp, coo
I settle in and sigh
allow the words to transport my mind. 

A temperate breeze drops a thin vine onto open book
helps the potted plant take a peek
at what’s holding my intent gaze on this page
startled I gently finger the tender young growth, move it aside
then pause to enjoy the sweet mint fragrance clinging onto fingertips. 

The familiar scent takes me back to Grandma’s house
to the mint patch along the side of her paint-peeling old house
it stretched out, growing along the gravel driveway
I’d inhale the scent, then pick through rocks to find white ones
use ‘em like chalk on the concrete walk.

The image elicits a smile
and a twinge of pain at childhood days long gone
then the vine returns
quivers with the slightest movement of air
creeps onto my page again… comforting.