01 March 2010

Spice Garden Poetry - This Evening Slicing Lemons

This Evening Slicing Lemons

My sharp knife halves these orbs.
Oily fragrance coats my fingertips.
I twist juice from their yellow cups,
and in their mist I squint and see a yellow sun,
a bright green awning, the gnarled hands of
that Spanish elder presenting me a
burst of lemon coolness in the searing heat
of old Granada.

My fingers remember the slippery
chill of the red clay cup.
I can tilt my head back and feel the ache
from the sudden cold swallow.
I squint and see the distant Sierra Nevada
through the icy fumes rising
from that citrus nectar – all this,
all this before my kitchen counter.

- Susan Miller-Lindquist
  
 

I am intrigued by the idea that scents induce such strong memories that one can be completely transported sensually back across time and space to a particular point in one's experience.

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