*Love, Guns and Other Matters

Memories seek an audience and single me out in a silent
show of my past.  Taste, touch, sound, smell and images
of such fill my head.

I remember the taste of my first passionate kiss, the smell
of my mother's favorite perfume, the sound the front door
of my childhood home made when slamming.

I remember the heaviness of a shotgun and the power it
possessed, the smell of wet horse, my first taste of
Jack Daniels, and the beautiful symphony of a thunder
storm.

I remember the taste of pleasure with a long ago lover,
the smell of hot candle wax and whiskey, the whispered
conversations in the darkness of the morning and the
sheer tediousness of having sex hanging off a tire swing.

I remember touching my two children for the first time,
warm and wet from these childbearing hips.  The loveliness
of their first cry.  The sweetness of breast milk and an intoxicating
smell of baby lotion on soft skin.

Now with the Milky Way above my head, the cold night
chilling my face, I listen to the waves pound the shore and
smell the sea thick in the air.  Chardonnay crosses my lips,
and blankets my mouth with a delightful familiarity. 
I say a quiet, "thank you" to God for a rich life.