Teke

Memories of baking bread and fragrant flowers. For my grandmother, Teresa Deuel.

Teke


My grandmother loved flowers:
in old tires or in the ground,
spicy nasturtiums in Pennsylvania,
seductive gardenias in Florida,
pink carnations at her funeral.

She didn’t have time for old folks,
you see, she rode her tricycle
until she was Eighty-two,
quitting, only because they made her stop!

And she made wall hangings when old age came,
like the donkey she gave me when I
was young.

Among her blue morning glories,
and wild flowers along the red walk,
I grew up to the smell of baking bread
and learned to grow my own fragrance
in forty years of planting flowers.

I was Ten when she turned Seventy.
Gifts from grandmother? Yes. Plenty.


© Kåre Enga

Catalogue number: 160.234


Note: for Teresa Deuel (1892-1985) "Teke" was her nickname.