Scent Remembered

Spring is near. I can tell

By the stink that wafts high

From the skunks nightly trail

Past my window, woods to woods.

The acrid odor permeates the morning,

Then fades to a subtle pungency

In the warmth of a soon and tentative sun.

The trail renews, year upon year,

A bitter lead-in to temper the pleasance

Of another season of promise,

Probably unfulfilled,

Followed by the next, close against close.

The skunk scent will fade,

Leaving a redolent trail,

Once repugnant in its strangeness,

Now bittersweet in its remembrance,

Like a photograph of an unknown ancestor,

Once cruel in sharp focus,

Now tempered, blanched

By time and light.

The skunk scent comes first,

Then the sweetness of spring,

So we might breathe its covenant,

Forgetting that pledges are often

Broken.