Grandmother's Flower
For my Grandmother....I hope I've made you proud
By Lynn Hill

Golden summers and faded memories
tug at me and pull me back to childhood.
I see her -- tall, invincible - my grandmother.
She tended her vegetables, a myriad of flowers,
especially roses, and the occasional scraped knee.

Sunday afternoons just made for a drive,
our destination did not matter.
The purpose: to lose ourselves in Life,
take home a memory unlike any other.
Drive till you found it-you'd know when you arrived.

Pine trees line country roads,
Nature's air fresheners,
waft through open windows.
Smell of Christmas in spring,
blur past like fence pickets.
Mourning doves take flight
bittersweet premonition in melancholy coos.

Many memories are pasted into the scrapbook of my mind,
Joy of new discoveries, ache of leaving them behind.
I made a promise in a moment of happy naivete`
a promise to smile like the faces on her pansies
and dress in the brilliant hues of her snapdragons.
I will celebrate her life today despite the presence of Death
as a floral testament to the spirit that taught me how to live.