162 I Love ... the smell of fresh cut hay

It takes me back

to my childhood.

It takes me back

to the farm,

to the horses,

to my Dad.

It take me back to our kitchen;

figuring out after lunch

whether it would be 

dry enough

to bale.

I revisit

standing on the hay wagon,

grabbing

heavy, prickly bales

and pretending

that I was strong enough

to lift them easily.

I was not.

I drove the tractor instead.

But I rode on the

bumpy, noisey thing to the field

and back to the barn, 

breathing in that wonderful

summer fragrance.

The smell of the hay,

the feel of the sun;

it all comes back -

a whiff of the past.