He called it broom sage, <br />I guess because it was once <br />used to make them. <br /> <br />Clumps of it <br />were everywhere, <br />blondish sheaves, heads up, <br />looking as though <br />a thousand determined <br />homemakers had <br />gone on strike <br />and abandoned <br />their sweeping chores. <br /> <br />It looked pretty <br />there against the plain white daisies <br />and edging the purpling fruits <br />of dewberries kissing the ground. <br /> <br />It was our neighbor, Mr. Ladner, <br />who named the flora and the fauna <br />for me. I imagined him Adam <br />cataloging the denizens of paradise. <br /> <br />It was he who showed me <br />where to find the best wild grapes, <br />where to see wild turkeys <br />or to hear their haunting yap, yap, yap. <br /> <br />It was he who told me that <br />man is good, but not all he’s cracked up to be, <br />not everything. <br /> <br />Mr. Ladner has long <br />gone off for other edens <br />or other dimensions. <br />But I still own a sage-brush broom <br />and on those days <br />when life seems mostly memories, <br />I take it from the closet <br />and sweep, sweep. Shhhhh….<br /><br />Sonny Rainshine<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/broom-sage/
