When you look at old photos
You can smell the rooms,
The books, antiques and musty looms;
Fading wallpaper, rusty pails,
Fabric'd walls, with homemade nails.
Look even closer, and you might smell
Left-over dinner, hanging in air,
The dirty clothes and lye soap there;
Boiled in water, from a dank old well.
Closer yet, and there's dried out flowers
On vellum printed with scented ink,
From lavender fields, grown right in back-
And steam so thick, the walls might weep.
In the heat, the fabrics send
Their odors wafting to any wind,
And the brown tinctures on the table
Send their smells too, if they are able.
And that bit of scent goes in everything;
As in a letter, bound for spring,
So that when opened, the reader might pause
To sniff the drying lavender’s thawing.
For all enclosed in that little post,
Is the odor of blankets and linen things,
And spices piled high, on a kitchen shelf;
You can sense the love from many miles away-
Fresh from the house, of another's day.
Patti Masterman
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/another-s-day/
