Today was Summersweet:
Clethra alnifolia, ‘Ruby Spice’,
Sweet Pepperbush,
Abloom like a bottle brush. Pink and white sorbet. The scent, a customer said, like lilacs;
a fragrance so oiled and heavy in its syrup and nectar
that it recalled May, but thicker
than those heady scents that devour the senses in spring
leaving only the shades of twilight that strike the eye sweetly.
Summersweet, Pepperbush: drinking hole of bees and butterflies,
hunting terrain for eastern amberwings.
Summersweet in the weight of August, its fragrance arresting walkers in their paths,
stopped and turning, searching for the scent that brought them honey and brought them
pink.
