Memories

Flowers growing beside the road
at an abandoned homestead.
Bright purple flags waving
in the Oklahoma wind,
showing that once
love lived there.

The sight takes me back to
childhood.

To my grandma’s house where
she always had flags growing. I can
imagine the scent and I’m instantly at her
house. Swinging in the wooden swing.
Gathering eggs, reading the funny papers
with granddad. The sight of his dirty fingernails
after a hard days work. His denim overalls.

Grandma’s kitchen. The cookie jar that now sits
at my parents house. The ceramic pig that now lives in
my kitchen windowsill. My only physical link to
that time.

But the smell of of an iris always takes me back.