0089 The Top Floor Poem by Michael Shepherd

Up that top flight of stairs
whose old, unvarnished wood
scrubs up so well and welcoming,

where it's so quiet at the top of the house
that even the sunlight enjoys the silence,
there's a room kept ready, welcoming,
for every poet I respect:
and yes, for you...

Open each door
and there's such a subtle, same-yet-different,
fragrance in each room - eluding definition,
yet so loved, and so familiar:
a field of wildflowers in the sunlit morning dew,
or grateful after later April shower,
or is it freshly laundered sheets dried in the wind?
a hint of that precious, faintly perfumed scrap of silk
from Grandmother's wedding dress?
A dried rose in a drawer lined with cedarwood?
And just a hint of honey-soaked tobacco,
and once-a-year, and very fine, cigar?
a horse's sweat on crisp and frosty day?
the zinging air on pebbled beach in aftermath of storm?

or freshly-showered skin,
and all the wild and gentle
scents of love?

All that, in these so living rooms,
peaceful, welcoming,
and full of you