Suddenly,
without warning,
without precedent
or prelude,
On a dreary January morning,
in the grey
and lingering damp,
It happened
that Summer
startled me—
quite unannounced
and unexpected.
It shocked me,
there in the cellar,
sifting through
cobwebs,
extension cords,
milk crates,
and mesh bags of walnuts—
the implements
and incomplete aspirations
of Saturdays past.
It came from
the underside of
the weed wacker shield,
that whiff,
that aroma,
that unmistakable
association:
Old grass.
Dry and stale,
pungent,
sour,
but Summer all the same.
It broke upon my senses
like a flash of summer lightning,
burst into my mind’s eye
with the brilliance
of a summer sun.
It rent the chill
of my bleak mid-winter
with the scorch
and sweat
of an August afternoon.
And then,
just as suddenly,
as terminably
as the landscape
shutters in darkness
after the bolt’s brilliant burst,
It was gone.
January 16, 2021
Flagstones 