Eighteen Percent

Illustration from
cgtrader.com

oh how I loved them
those halcyon days
burning autumn
in redolent piles
pungent cellulose
lignin alight on the air
smell of carbon
ambrosia emitted
from scintillate embers
crisp dissipate heralds
momentous of change
tell me who was it
stole them from me
from the vital molecular
eighteen percent of me
craving to savor the
mournful exchange
between carbon-based
lifeforms in passage
from here to hereafter

Transaction

Photo from
fitfoodcoach.com

figures scribbled down sides
of brown paperbag lungs
readjusted to inhale the
change in the air late sown
produce marked down to
reflect crisp demands made
by autumn all harvest sales
final their seasonal clearance
will empty the fields giving
pause for the earth to refresh
with a deep-drawn exhilarant
breath full of savory purchase
invested with redolent tang of
October aromas conducive to
turning for sleep well disposed
to forget wayward summers

Home Ago

Photo from
artisansofleisure.com

kitchen aromas
mama in her element
oh what I would give

Anticipation

1952 Catholic School Classroom
Photo from thedailysuse.blogspot.com

I can still smell the day
my soft leather bookbag
fresh oiled with linseed
looked after no less than
my trusty old baseball mitt
pulpy brown paper
for covering textbooks
the redolent shavings
from sharpened new pencils
ammonia laced water
cleaned fountain pen nibs
virgin black and white marble
clad ruled composition books
cracked freshly open
clean crisp and awaiting
new knowledge and penmanship
heady with hopes and
excitement imagining
teacher and classmates
who’d make for enjoyable
days amid chalk-dusted
blackboards and inkwells
although it’s all well more
than sixty years gone
I can still smell the day

Nosing Nostalgia

Illustration by Norman Rockwell
from reversespins.com

 

linseed and leather,

dampened red clay, new-mown grass,

rosin and pine tar