Ricie’s Porch

July Heat
July heat bathes my waiting skin. Winters linger beneath too many layers of suffocating sweaters, socks, and boots.
My grandmother, Ricie, waited impatiently for the gloom of winter to pass so she could resume her walks and her digging in the dirt,
where summer flowers and ferns would emerge from years of favorite perennials in her yard and along the banisters of her expansive porch.
Ricie understood the inviting green against her painted white porch. It was small-town Southern— a richness disappearing far too soon to suit my eighty-one years.
A life bloomed behind the ferns and flowers on Ricie's welcoming porch.
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