Born to be Simple

by Poet on the Piano   Apr 30, 2013


Whenever I smell fresh grass being cut
or lilac bushes budding their perfume,
it is the middle of a palm-sweating June when
no one knows what time it is and no one cares;
I am calmly
swinging high across the street on rain-washed
seats, drinking diet Coke straight from the can
at my grandpa's white house next door
while he
teaches me how to cut vegetables with sharp knives,
fixes Ritz crackers with clumps of grape jam, and
tells me about the wily foxes and squirrels he has
gleefully spotted.

Whenever I smell wildflowers grow, it is a simplistic day.

But this is not my story...

My story is remembering Grandpa Max
as he lovingly watched me grow up in a
simple country town
he is too weak
to garden in or return to,

again.

-
Written 4/29/13 @ 12 pm for my creative writing class.... our teacher posed a bunch of questions about our childhood, like specific smells we liked, and asked us to write what we remember with a twist at the end. This was my attempt, and I found the inspiration today, I felt I really needed to write this.

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Latest Comments

  • 11 years ago

    by Mohan

    Peaceful and remembering the childhood days.
    your way of expression is very strong and soft.
    Cute poem....

  • 11 years ago

    by Gary R Priester

    Very nice! it is amazing how simple memories can become impportant as time passes. I find that writing them down brings them flooding back.

    Thanks for the memories.

  • 11 years ago

    by Courageous Dreamer

    Oh what a lovely poem! It truly brought back a lot of memories of my childhood as well and made me think of my grandpa also and how much I miss him. You are so right, there are certain smells that remind us of a special someone, maybe it's because they liked it, perhaps hated it or whichever but at least we have little memory of them whenever we smell it. I know my grandpa always hated grape so anything flavored grape or smelling like grapes I always think of him and laugh at how much he used to complain about it.

    I just love all the random images, the rain-washed seats, drinking coke from the can, wildflowers, etc. I can totally relate to the rain-washed swing set seats. Always so annoying when you sat down in a little puddle but they had to be one of the most fun things! I used to play with my brothers and sisters where we would jump off of them and see how far each of us could go.

    I loved how you went about doing this challenge. I thought the ending was great, I'm smiling at all these lovely memories and then the ending is a bit sad saying he can't do what he loves anymore.

    Well done! I really loved reading some of your childhood memories and remembering some of mine too :)

  • 11 years ago

    by L

    It feels good to just write, doesn't it?
    by that I mean to just let go and remember.

    Sorry, I don't have a well written comment but this piece brought some memories back.

    thanks for sharing.

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