Perfume

there should be perfume made from the grass pale green

after our Grandfather mows the lawn and we could

stopper it with the crystal blue of the sky above

the backyard and we picked rose petals from the

flower bed and smothered them in the linen closet

thinking they would become our very own rose

perfume till Grandmother said what the heck is this, little

girls? and filled with gloom we had to face the fact

we were never going to be perfumers and how come

everyone else's science experiments worked

and yet and yet on rare days I remember the scent

of those roses the first scent the pink of it the red of

it the rose red stories

and I start to cry at the kindness of God

preserving it anyway so vividly,

smoothing the linen of our minds

beyond what could be expected

as if there were no past but only those

roses only that sky

still, and ever present

in our blossoming through Time

mary angela douglas 26 march 2015