Seasonal scents-The prompt is about the scent of summer. I’m doing a freer interpretation…this is a rough draft of my memoir in poetry.
Note: I changed tense in the middle of the poem deliberately…bare bones…
The earth is a woman.
When I was young the changing seasons reveled my senses.
Hard cold endless winter made brighter by the sun as she turned
my bedroom window gave way to
eager smells from the sometimes open screen bringing life in again
blooms open and trees turned
fields swelled up to the glorious greens.
My woman friend wears an endearing eau de fresh earth and bark.
The earth is a woman.
I roamed, I roamed.
Time tended the years, deliberately taking leave of the Southern Ohio balmy woods
I flew to Oakland to explore ivy laden hillside streets and alleyways to grand avenues.
Laced curtains billowed in bus filled streets as sociable angels on bikes dwelled with truth seekers and poets.
A student, lover, attendant, and mother, when the baby is a year old we make the northerly trek
to the mountains of my power days. Mountain woman walks with her friend.
My earthy friend is the duskiest most delicate sweetness and she never leaves me
when tears drop on the ground.
The earth is a woman
my companion is forever a sanctuary, her moods can be soft or rough or raging.
The scent is manzanita, water-kissed pine and redwood, deep and sturdy sphagnum oaks
hold me
in a funnel of comfort as I transformed from young woman to middle age.
Then, as gorges deepened in the meadow and trees fell, so did people and the lines
on my face, your odor is still as sweet as baby’s breath with new spring rain.
I cling to your wisdom, your stories, and searching, searching,
The children leave home all grown.
The summers roll on lovely and lavender, full of jasmine and rose.
The earth is a woman.
My man becomes discontent the quarrels erupt as plump, pregnant summers give birth to
wood-smoked fall. We adventure out, unsure, then make a plan
to move to the sparkled and bright-aura desert where my woman friend throws off
the sent of sage a turning couture of fashionable brevity. She offers newness-the
nascent wafting – sand after the monsoon, blossoms nudge rabbits to hop and lizards to dance.
The desert broom, mesquite and palo verde make a wreathe around my head
as creosote and ragweed change my sinus cavities
and his will to live. Heart surgery. Success.
The earth is a woman.
I am evolving faster than she, but still my soul opens in quiet gratitude.
Her sensuous scent is a daily gift of ceremony, sunrise and sunset
accompanied by gaudy displays of color and drama.
How can you smell so darling and then so foul, as when a big saguaro decays?
Later I laugh only after squelching the memory of the nasty rot
Right in the front yard, the odor so bad, I thought there had been a murder in the neighborhood.
Could it be horse in death? No, a giant had fallen.
I become the aging woman, my earthen friend has shown me a thing or two.
She wins, hands down, but bellows out an uncharacteristic command.
I am she on whom you all stand. I feed you, console, bathe, give you lovely teas and coffees, fruits
and vines with bursting melons, medicines for your bruises.
But yet, you trample me, drill me, extract my blood and juice, attacking me.
Stop hurting me and raping me!
Tell your humans to stop.
If you do not stop I will send more hurricanes, and big earthquakes and I will
deliver a rage more devastating
than your puny, tainted interpretations of a wisdom you call ‘God.’
Vengeance is mine, sayeth the earth.
I’ve had enough now. I might leave you all behind, if you don’t change.
The earth is a woman.
Treat Yourself to a Journaling Adventure 