But, surely, the tree in Eden was a giant mint plant,
promising knowledge profane and sacred,
the doorways of Eternity opening—
summer air pushes heavy around the house,
ice clicks in the teeth,
the mixture’s smell invites you in
to where the mint lies on the tongue.
And in the distance,
bourbon-taste and sugar against the palette
sweet as remembered Sunday mornings.

©2008, Jack Peachum

Jack Peachum is a sometime poet and actor who lives in a haunted old manse, The Venable’s House, in Clarksville, Virginia, with many ghosts, his wife Julia and a lovely bulldog named Eleanor. Several of his poems appear in our other seasonal anthologies: “Virginia in Spring” in the spring collection, “Our Pierrot in Autumn” in the fall collection, and The Migrant” in the winter collection.

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