Parched Peanuts
              (blank verse)
              by Pat Laster
 

Peggy Vinning (l), Arkansas poet laureate, and  Pat Laster (r) accepting the past president's award from Poets' Roundtable of Arkansas in 2005.

The memory of peanuts spawns a smell
that emanated from my grandpa’s barn –
those dried and dusty weeds had hung from nails
since Grandpa sent us out to harvest them.
Like fresh-cut wood, they had to cure and age
till dry and ready for the fire. We shucked
the earthy goobers – really roots – from stalks
of mother plants who’d done their job: produced
their offspring; suited now for compost, or
for burning. Laid in sieves of screen, we shook
the musky dust, detritus till no fleck
fell through. We took the first clean pan of nuts
inside for Grandma’s cookie sheet. The stove
was hot. She set the oven gauge to warm,
alarm for thirty minutes. When she popped
them out, she used a pancake turner, flipped
the cooking nuts. “Another half-an-hour,”
she said, “and they’ll be done.” They disappeared
again in oven’s darkness. We stayed close
to kitchen door, inhaling fragrances
that – unbeknownst to us back then – would stay
with us forever. So they did; our kids,
now grown, insist on bowls of peanuts parched
in Mama’s modern oven. Nothing beats,
they say, the smell, the click of shell, the taste
unique that conjures sweetest memories.

For twenty-seven happy years I taught
the kiddos music, fine arts, Gifted Ed.
Retiring gave me time to write. Tonight,
my household’s off to Open House.
I’ll cloak myself in quietness, unplug
the telephone, turn off the TV’s blare.
I’ll stare awhile to settle down, and then
begin: “I’d rather write than go to school.
I sent my representative. My feet 
atop the coffee table. CD plays
the organ-ed ‘Sheep May Safely Graze’ by Bach,
a favorite. Serene, I sit, devise
iambic lines, ten syllables per line.
This time alone rejuvenates my soul
like nothing else. It brings me joy and peace,
the feeling of accomplishment. A word,
a phrase, I’m on my way. And all I have
to do, says Hemingway, is string some words
together into one true sentence. There,
I’ve reached my goal.” Hooray, I say, and smile.