Youth Elixir / Scented Memories by Ann Christine Tabaka

Youth Elixir 

Saturday morning, cleaning house,

the sun streaming in.

I find it tucked away, in the back of 

a shelf of dusty old books.

Slowly releasing it from its place,

it falls open to the precise page.

There lies the white rose pressed flat, now 

browning from a time almost forgotten.

Memories flood back to that day, I can still 

picture your face smiling at me with green eyes.

You surprised me with my favorite flower.

The first of many to come.  

I carefully tucked it away to preserve

for forever, well, at least for today.

Too many years have passed, and the

young hand that first held that rose is

now wrinkled with age.

But with just a single touch of that token of 

love, I am once again young and alive.

Scented Memories

Scented memories waft through the air.

Expectations widen the eyes of hope,

brushing away cobwebs from

the lost corners of time.

Synapses fire off as muted sounds

of distant voices manifest themselves 

among the garbled words of blank faces.

History in reverse, snippets resurfacing,

if only for a moment.

That old chair seems familiar, 

was it always there?

Grocery lists piled up on the table,

mixed in with last week’s mail.

Forgotten love letters reaching back

into the bottom drawers of an old credenza,

thread bare and finger worn.

Recollections play lost and found 

in the recesses of shadowed dreams;

while the aromas of another time

make it all seem so close and real again,

if only for a short time.

The sweet memory of scent.

Ann Christine Tabaka has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in Poetry, has been internationally published, and won poetry awards from numerous publications. She lives in Delaware, USA.  She loves gardening and cooking.  Chris lives with her husband and three cats. Her most recent credits are: *(a complete list of publications is available upon request)