Honeysuckle

We never had an ice cream truck snake through our neighborhood,

the playground of my childhood.  We never heard
the signaling bells of sticky treats while building a fort,
playing hide-and-go-seek, or climbing those huge magnolias.

Instead, when the heat got to be too much or we just wanted
something small and sweet, all the neighborhood kids would
gather at the perfumed arching shrubs, twining vines that
consumed the fence marking Mr. Whichard’s property line.

The flowered bells, willing and generous, shared their juice
with us, and the occasional hummingbird or butterfly.