Broom Sage Poem by Sonny Rainshine

He called it broom sage,
I guess because it was once
used to make them.

Clumps of it
were everywhere,
blondish sheaves, heads up,
looking as though
a thousand determined
homemakers had
gone on strike
and abandoned
their sweeping chores.

It looked pretty
there against the plain white daisies
and edging the purpling fruits
of dewberries kissing the ground.

It was our neighbor, Mr. Ladner,
who named the flora and the fauna
for me. I imagined him Adam
cataloging the denizens of paradise.

It was he who showed me
where to find the best wild grapes,
where to see wild turkeys
or to hear their haunting yap, yap, yap.

It was he who told me that
man is good, but not all he’s cracked up to be,
not everything.

Mr. Ladner has long
gone off for other edens
or other dimensions.
But I still own a sage-brush broom
and on those days
when life seems mostly memories,
I take it from the closet
and sweep, sweep. Shhhhh….