Tracey Kiff-Judson's Blog: Tangles & Tails

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Summer Sweetness

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Poetry Friday!  Please visit Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone and enjoy all of the Poetry Friday fun!

 

It’s that time of year!

When I ride my bike through the woods from mid-July through mid-August, I am fortunate to pass through clouds of fragrant perfume from this flowering bush. I think it may be called Summersweet or Sweet Pepperbush (Google Lens identifies it as clethra alnifolia). It smells wonderful, vaguely of Prell shampoo (for those of you who recall Prell from childhood!).

Summer Sweetness

 

Licorice, pepper,

gardenia and spice.

What is this flower?

It’s not Edelweiss.

 

Bumblebees drawn in

by scents that entice.

This is the bloom

that’s become my new vice.

32 comments

  • I learned so much about how our olfactory sense works reading AN IMMENSE WORLD by Ed Yong--I'd call it our most enchanting/enchanted sense, and your poem sounds like a charm for smelling!
  • I love your poem, but I also love the little story about your dog and a skunk that you tucked into the comment chain about Prell memories! 
  • Maybe it's the time of year, but I've been gobsmacked by wafting pine floating through my bedroom window while I'm writing. Maybe our muses know that when we are busy doing something, this may be the best time to tickle our noses with aroma? And don't you absolutely love the iphone photo feature that helps identify possible names for plants/trees/bugs/dogs?!?
    • So true, Marcie.  When I am old (or maybe tomorrow), and I can't remember my own name, I think I will still remember the smell of Prell!
  • Tracey, there is nothing more memorable than an aromatic scent emanating from a bush. Your poem brings me back to the smell of gardenias near the Polynesian Hotel in Disney World and that of a huge tree near a pool. Perfumed wonders are wonderful treasures during summer months. Your poem's ending flows beautifully.
    • Carol, I know that smell!  We stayed at the Polynesian when the kids were little.  Gardenias and Dole Whip -- the scents of paradise!  : )

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