The Scent of Memory

Four year old Abraham’s hair, not fresh from the bathtub,

just any day when I grab him up, breathe him deeply in

smells like memory of hayfields in late summer, stubbled

with cut grasses, alfalfa, clover, sun-dried, wind-rowed,

ready for bailing. I run my fingers through his hair

like I ran through those August childhood fields, scab-kneed,

sun- freckled, momentary as the cabbage butterflies

that lit on the clover. My nose in his soft, earthy waif’s mop,

I am spread unthin across time, and miles, and the full span

of human capacity

for joy.