Parched Peanuts
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, the nuts
were shaken till all flecks of musky dust
fell through. We took the first clean pan of them
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.
c 2012 by Pat Laster dba lovepat press
