Cautionary Advice

This woman always
Poured her cup
Full with fragrance:
Lavender, jasmine
And somedays
Roasting rooibos.
In passing one day
She whispered to me:
        Be careful where 
         You steep your soul.
          That boy there
           Is acrid brine.
            You don't want to
             Make yourself
              A pickle.

Photo by Artem Mizyuk on Pexels.com

Monday’s prompt on dVerse was to wrote a quadrille (a poem 44 words in length) containing the word steep or any of its forms.

Link to dVerse prompt: https://dversepoets.com/2019/01/28/quadrille-72/

Seoul

The rain came down on Seoul.
My soul it bathed and seduced.
For a sole wanderer far from home,
Seoul filled my sole soul with youth.

It’s raining today and I don’t want it to be. It’s a cold, dreary January rain and I want nothing more than for it to be snowing. I am deeply craving the quiet that comes with powdery snow, and the even deeper cold that comes with that snow. I am not quite sure why. I have always identified myself as a “summer person.” Despite the fact that I want it to be snowing, the current weather reminded me of this brief poem that I wrote some time ago while reminiscing about living in Korea. I lived there ten years ago.

Summer came early that year in Korea, bringing heat and heaviness to the air. The trademarks of summer that I was used to–blue skies, clear sunshine–were not there. Even on cloudless days, the sun was obscured by haze. It rained a lot in July, and even when the clouds left the sky, the sun was but a blurred glow, having the same effect as viewing a light through a frosted window. In those days I welcomed the rain. For a few years after I returned from Korea, hot and rainy summer days often flooded my mind with memories of my time overseas. All weather talk aside, I loved spending time in Seoul and would go back again in a heartbeat.

Although as I am writing this, it is not hot and humid, and is in fact January, and on top of that I want nothing more than two feet of snow, I still could not resist posting a blurb about summer rain in Seoul.