For An Instant
For an instant he is a lad
smelling the perfume of a young lady
for the first time
or maybe for the second or third,
olfactory memories are powerful
and travel together.
Now on this morning, the snow carries
a peppermint and lilac scent
and he an old man searching for a source.
Here comes a ragged flight of crows,
he squints in the cold sunlight,
dazzled, and yet the crows are more defined now
then they would be in a less brilliant light.
He recalls the same crows
when he was young, the same bright snow
almost blue under their wings.
Did any of this change -
the girl, the crows, the scent,
and sense of it all?
Later he ponders that when the mind falls
into a sensory soup, a medley poured long ago
can shed a lifetime in that one moment,
an instant that opens like an old book
that can be read
for the first time once more.
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