AROMA
Winter Prompts #12
Between the gift shop and the archive,
the museum dining room wafts—
yes, wafts—me across times
beyond another dining room
to the tower room.
Paint-spotted floor,
a crooked ping-pong table,
the long bell rope hanging.
Rickety stairs in the corner—
first landing to the sacristy door,
second to the ladder to the belfry
with its bats and the bell
I was the last, with human hands, to ring
There must be a story behind this one, yes? A church that is no longer? That is, at least, the image it conjures in my mind.
The old Institute Building at Rock Point, which was where I went to summer camp for years and years. I was at a conference there shortly before it burned down, and really may have been the last one to ring the bell. It was a very special place.
I just added a photo of it. I didn’t explain that the Sheldon Museum smells the same way.