Love’s Scratch ‘n’ Sniff

Photos from Mom's album - click on photo to enlarge

Scratch ‘n’ sniff yellow
aroma of angel food and jelly roll
when you wake up
Saturday-morning-warm.
Hurry down to claim bowl and beaters
dripping with batter to lick.

Scratch ‘n’ sniff white
perfume of just-washed frozen
diapers softening beside the heater.
Laundry makes Mom tired. “Read!” you call
as she dozes off again, mid-story at nap time.

Scratch ‘n’ sniff green
storm-scrubbed morning air.
All night you lay watchful, sprawled on pull-out
living-room couches with brothers and sisters
and pinched eyes shut against
lightning that took flash after flash
picture through the window
to thunder’s applause.

Scratch ‘n’ sniff charcoal
diesel fumes, body odor
of the pulsing Massey 55.
You’re standing beside it asking
“Daddy, what do you mean, ‘We’ll see’?”

© 2003 by Violet Nesdoly

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This poem was first published at Utmost Christian Writers, where it tied with another poem for first place in the 2003 Utmost “Love to a Child” contest (“Your poem must be about ‘a child’s view of love’”).

Somewhere

Somewhere people hurry
somewhere alarm clocks ring
somewhere typists worry
about each picky thing.

Somewhere there’s a schedule
of things that must be done
priorities and lists rule
while I lie in summer sun

wondering, Will my book last?
Will swimming help my burn?
I need another repast!
When is it time to turn?

© 2004 by Violet Nesdoly

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It’s time for summer holidays. We’ll be off soon on various jaunts near and far. I love summer – and holidays!

(This poem was first published in my 2004 chapbook Calendar – available for purchase here)

Heat Wave

Roadside chicory

Yesterday’s fever
broke in the evening
This morning
cool soothing air
bathes face arms legs
the neighborhood refreshed
as if it slept
deep and exhausted
after sickness

But sun’s warm hand upon my back
warns temperature is rising
and burning heat will soon
again blister the brown grass
make bright-eyed impatiens
and roadside chicory
droop in the dazzling delirium

We will lie in darkened rooms
splayed under whirring fans
flushed fighting off sweats
ice-tinkling drinks within arm’s reach
till evening
when the fever breaks again.

© 2007 by Violet Nesdoly

Kingdom of Castaways

Washboard cupboard doors - part of the decor of Northern Lights Truckstop, Paynton, Saskatchewan.

Not a Cat-, Dog- or Bird-lady
she scours the neighborhood
for Furniture abandoned at the curb
– chairs, hutches, footstools, lampshades –
brings them home
to brood and dream over
then transforms and restores
with sandpaper, paint, stain
varnish and varathane
re-upholsters with velvet and brocade
nourishes personality
with painted heart or flower,
glued on bead or tassel,
fringe or braid

Finally she hands out the assignments:
“Here, you sit in this corner
and hold the books
while you display the milk glass
and you cushion my feet…”
gifting to each
a place, purpose
and reason to live again.
in her Kingdom of Castaways.

© 2007 by Violet Nesdoly

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I wrote this poem in response to a blog I used to read. The woman who wrote it was continually rescuing things from roadside oblivion. I see this ‘Castaway Kingdom’ as a picture of how God rescues us.

This poem was published in my book Family Reunion (available for sale here.)