Winter’s Spring Rain

Driving to work and smelling

the rain outside.

60 or so degrees on

an evening

in February and it

makes me wonder

do you smell sharp metallic

scents and get hurled

back to days you’d forgotten?

Nostalgia reeks of rain, tilled

soil, and sometimes

Bath & Body Works lotion.

I wonder how

many senses nostalgia

has?  For me it’s

most strongly attached to sound

and scent.  Often,

I hear soft “new age” music

or Christmas songs;

I remember you sleeping

under the small

tree next to your mother, next

to the Mother

Mary and the porcelain

Jesus.  I’m not

certain we even owned a

Nativity,

yet, it is there in my mind.

Jesus raises

his arms in the soft glow of

the music on

the TV.  Mary softly

hums an Enya

song to all of you as I

slip quietly

out the door and into a

new memory

of driving past thunderheads

and fresh tilled earth.

It all runs together and

The only thread

That keeps it in line is you.

February

Changes.  Gone, you change me still.

And you smell like

The rain that is creeping up

On me again.

This time the rain smells like salt.