41 Comments
User's avatar
Joel Wisniewski's avatar

Sharron,

The spoken word creates an atmosphere of longing. I love it.

Joel

Expand full comment
Sharron Bassano's avatar

Thank you, Joel! I am glad if it sparked something in you.

Expand full comment
Joel Wisniewski's avatar

I have a dream. I will write something that reads like music: soft and melodic with energy and spirit. It will soar off the page, circle the room, and land softly on the heart.

Thousands will read it, and the lips of history will repeat it.

Expand full comment
Sharron Bassano's avatar

Well, hell, Joel! If you are going to dream, dream BIG, I say! That's the spirit!

Expand full comment
Jim J Wilsky's avatar

Sharron, its funny you mention this because with me anyway, the sense of smell has always been

the dominant sense that triggers déjà vu type moments. For others it might be sights or sounds. Whichever it is though, its a real phenomenon. The human mind is an amazing mystery. - Jim

Expand full comment
Sharron Bassano's avatar

I am with you 100% on olfactory memory. I will give you four phrases as a test.

puppy's breath

little boy's sweat

the pre-injection alcohol swab

rotting orange peels

I can smell all four clear as if they were in the room. Can't you?

Expand full comment
Richard Blaisdell's avatar

Chanel .#5, vanilla.

Expand full comment
Sharron Bassano's avatar

Yes. Exactly!

Expand full comment
Jim J Wilsky's avatar

Well, I flunked those, haha - but they are your own. I think everyone has different triggers and different memories tied to them. Another mind-boggling thing is when you hear someone say something, or you have a short conversation with them, and you can just swear you remember it from the past. To the point where you know what you, or them, are going to say.

Expand full comment
Sharron Bassano's avatar

Yes. I have experienced that. Spooky deja vu

Expand full comment
Kate Henry's avatar

Ouch that hurts. I'm the oldest of my clan. I don't want to think about this.....

Expand full comment
Sharron Bassano's avatar

No, me neither. Sorry. I just had to let it out this morning.

Expand full comment
Kate Henry's avatar

Hugs on ya

Expand full comment
Sue Cauhape's avatar

Melancholy memories. They do put one in a wistful mood. Like looking at a photo album and feeling the sadness there amid the growth.

Expand full comment
Sharron Bassano's avatar

Yes, exactly - sweet / bitter.

Expand full comment
Jack Herlocker's avatar

💚💚💚

Expand full comment
Sharron Bassano's avatar

Thanks, Jack!

Expand full comment
Janice Walton's avatar

Yep, that is the way of it.

Expand full comment
Sharron Bassano's avatar

And the sun still rises every morning and life goes on.

Expand full comment
Jill CampbellMason's avatar

Fifty words…fifty thoughts. I’m impressed as always how to squeeze in so much thought and emotion. Beautiful

Expand full comment
Sharron Bassano's avatar

Thank you, Jill. I think you can learn as much from having restraints as you can from total freedom. Not sure.

Expand full comment
Jill CampbellMason's avatar

Sometimes definitely: just read the book "A Woman is no Man" which wraps constraints around displaced Palestinians--although fiction, it has power of how those constraints of culture and heritage pull and then...maybe...like a rubber-band stretched too tightly...they are released.

I'm intrigued.

Expand full comment
Jim Cummings's avatar

So true that certain smells or sounds can bring memories flooding back.

Expand full comment
Sharron Bassano's avatar

patchouli

herbal essence shampoo

baby powder

How about you?

Expand full comment
Jim Cummings's avatar

Oh yes, herbal essence, 1974. Her name was Rene. Oh Lord!

Expand full comment
Sharron Bassano's avatar

👍🏻

Expand full comment
Sharon Hudson's avatar

Sharron, I never knew of this one! It moved me so! It’s like you touched on a chord that was perfectly tuned to my heart.

Expand full comment
Sharron Bassano's avatar

Thanks, sister!

Expand full comment
Yael Gelardin's avatar

The senses! For me the sense of smell is very important! A scent can bring me the past in one sniff!

Expand full comment
Sharron Bassano's avatar

Yes, me too. The smell of a certain bush, when I walk by it! Instantly I know where I was, when, with whom, and doing what! Like a breaking wave.

Expand full comment
Justin Deming's avatar

To this day, any time I smell cigarette smoke, I’m brought back to my grandmother’s kitchen table, and I’m listening to her tell me stories. What a powerful piece!

Expand full comment
Sharron Bassano's avatar

Cigarette smoke. It used to be a part of every child's life. We just thought that was the way the world smelled. It has totally disappeared from Santa Cruz. I am happy to hear that some of your own story-telling art is hereditary. Now you are passing it down to your daughter like so much DNA. Beautiful.

Expand full comment
Justin Deming's avatar

It has essentially vanished over here in my neck of the woods, as well. I’m thankful for its disappearance but also thankful for the memories! That’s very kind of you, my friend.

Expand full comment
K.C. Knouse's avatar

A beautiful expression of the old saying: Those who have touched us are never really gone. Loved this line: "the echo of an mis-tuned banjo."

Expand full comment
Sharron Bassano's avatar

Thank you, my friend.

Expand full comment
Tim Connolly's avatar

Beautiful Sharron. Brought a memory of my father who would sing these nonsense ditties with no beginning or end. “Little Old Lady passing by” thanks for the mis-tuned banjo

Expand full comment
Sharron Bassano's avatar

Thank you for reading over here at 🌿LEAVES, Tim. I am so glad this poem evoked a memory of your own. ( Mission accomplished. )

Expand full comment
Janice Walton's avatar

That says it all.

Expand full comment
Sharron Bassano's avatar

Yep. That pretty much sums it up. Thanks, Janice.

Expand full comment
Nathan Slake's avatar

Rich in the senses!

Expand full comment
Sharron Bassano's avatar

Thanks for reading my poem, Nathan.

Expand full comment