The Mint Patch Monologue

Category: Gladys Taber Tribute Series

writing inspired by Gladys Taber

  • Ode to Playful June

    The special nights are here again. I looked at my watch last night and proclaimed out loud in my long “I” eastern Kentucky accent, “niiiiine thirty!” The sun’s evidence was still very alive providing me with pink, hazy light, enough light to dead head my geraniums and water the garden beds. I could hear kids up the street playing and rejoiced for them, their late bedtimes and unscheduled new days. I could smell the neighbor’s pool chlorine rising with the steamy, evening mist and as it entered my nose it brought me visions of crystal blue water disrupted by joyful cannonball. A June night is a shared one. I could see the glow of the neighbors cigarettes while they talked on the porch, I could feel the peach tree leaves against my back, dancing in circles while I inspected its fruit like some kind of critter. Was visited by a tiny yellow finch and a bright red one, they are keeping their eyes on the sunflowers that when opened face to sky will be seed plucked, happily. Folks drive by with windows down, teenagers that sound like startled chickens, couples keeping classic radio stations on air. I am flooded with memories of cruising for ice cream on nights like this. Open door nights.

    Someone mentioned crawdads the other day, and I remembered days I spent on the creek with my friends. We plopped down camping chairs in the middle of its rippling water, and pulled the bladders out of boxed wine to pass around generously. Someone showed me how to look for crawdads, how to plunge my hand down quickly into the clear running water, pinch their backs and lift them into air so we could marvel in their size as they stretched out. Then we built a fortress from good rocks and collected a population of those creek bugs so they could set up their own, new land, form their own rules. Somehow we must have longed to be those crawdads ourselves, rescued from life under a rock, destinies fulfilled, banned together to make our own rules.

    Oh June, you have retuned to us the taste of charcoal burnt hotdogs, and fire from sparklers we use to write out our names against a dark night sky. You remind us that riding a bike is something you just can’t forget how to do. You give us permission to let the kids talk us into doing cannonballs into crystal pools, and eat ice cream late at night.

    Dearest readers, enjoy your day. Even if all that feels good is a bit of cool air against a hot day.

    I will leave you with a summer poem. And don’t forget to reach out because I DO love to chat!

    readnwrite11@gmail.com

    Hiding Spots

    On a walk I thought about

    Little hiding spots.

    Dark places beneath the trees

    Wooded areas.

    New worlds with different rules

    Places all to yourself.

    A realm to feel big in

    A cleverness to enjoy

    A chance to be unseen

    Pretending and

    Remembering make-believe.

    -Sarah Justice 2026

  • Some order to Feeling

    This month has asked so much from us. My peach tree in full bloom one day and the very next, branches weighed down under heavy snow. Will the buds survive? It’s too soon to tell. The daffodils were laid to rest like patients, the roads froze and cracked, exposing hazards. A warm breeze on an 80 degree day carried in a snowstorm the next, a Trojan horse was welcomed and we bought it. This is the weather doing its own “trying” because this is what change really looks like. Like the buzzing around of confused carpenter bees, like tall virgin grass under ice, our atmosphere is forging in a new direction, and it’s been messy. Next comes the traditional practice of complaining about the weather, a requirement it seems, of being human. But your whining is justified, trust me! Too much of our personality is derived from what’s going on outdoors. Am I a free spirited explorer today? Or a medieval hobbit? Have I proclaimed loyalty to my shorts and sandals again or must I cheat on them in boots. Don’t look, Birkenstocks, I do love you, and …. I thought I was ready but I’m not. Please wait for me. I always loved you over the boots. I am plagued with guilt over teasing the charcoal grill that it may cook for me once again, only to leave it in the cold, uncovered. I owe the house a sincere apology for having the heat and the air conditioner on in the same day. Be easy on me, hvac, I didn’t ask for this! As the wind blew the ornamental pear petals around they mixed with snowflakes and two unlikely sides met each other. Oh the lessons in March of surrender.

    On a Sunday
    Still, on a Sunday, we got a little sun burn and both panted to go inside

    MONDAY, and it didn’t stop snowing until 6 hours past this photo.

    March proves to us there is no order, at times only chaos. In life too, we can be slightly prepared to feel, but never enough prepared. Sit in the sun when you can, play in the snow too. Raise your arms in surrender and worry less. Accepting things out of order is the only way sometimes.

    Some order to feeling

    As much as you can see

    In black and white

    And know

    A door will slam, unexpected

    And rearrange the order

    An out of order 

    Misplaced rage appears 

    fear of loud noises. 

    Some days i am a net

    Parked in a breeze 

    Where birds of sorrow fly low 

    And get caught 

    Too many at a time or none at all

    Unorderly fashioned 

    We can’t instruct the birds or keep them

    In a row

    The feelings come 

    They stay and they go 

    Their feathers break our hearts 

    Before we are ready 

    The chaos of oranges 

    Tumbling onto the floor 

    Only because one is removed 

    Wipes out an arrangement 

    And leaves a mess 

    The sting on an ocean day 

    Comes at a rotten time 

    Who is in charge 

    And shouldn’t we have some order 

    Thank you for reading and as always reach out to me because I DO love to chat!

    readnwrite11@gmail.com