The Sisters

The heat is triple digits even
in California’s coastal oak
forest — I’ve finished mile two of
five, as sweat-salt doilies my shoulders.

Ahead lay “The Sisters” — four immense
bay laurel trees that inadvertently
have built this trail-nook. Sisters who have
gathered and smoothed local air as
if they were pulling taut the sheets
of an unmade sky, leaving nothing
but odors of oregano, thyme,
and lavender — a balm for my
heaving lungs.

I grin, as the gauze of brown air
disappears — a reverse Big Bang — bad
air now collapsing into a thimble-sized,
avoidable mass.

Passing the Sisters, I admire the work
they’ve done for these last ninety-eight
years.

Soothing all — they ask for so little
in return.

Gary D. Grossman
Verse-Virtual, September 2023