Tea Rose

She didn't mind when I leaned over near her.
She didn't stop me from smelling her hair.
She had no idea what I was remembering,
but when I asked her, "what scent do you wear?" she said, "Tea Rose."

I was taken far back to my childhood--
a red brick street I could not seem to place,
on one side: a hill crimson with roses,
and that curious smell filled the space: tea rose.

"I was three years old and I'd wandered off too far,
a good bit more curious than I was wise."
And when I told her, "it must have been Switzerland,"
I saw a shadow cross her strange hazel eyes.
"I ran up a crumbling cobblestone staircase,
up past some pine trees that creaked in the wind.
On the porch of a cabin, she sat in a rocker,
an old, lonely gypsy invited me in with tea rose.

"So inside I gazed at the dozens of tapestries.
She brewed tea and lit candles of rose.
She told stories, her voice a bare whisper.
She even dressed me in old gypsy clothes.
And then a tear swelled and dripped from her eyelash,
and she fixed me with a frightening glare.
She said, 'I'm old child, but I will come back again.
In another lifetime, I'll love you, I swear.'

"Candle wax dripped on the hardwood floor
and when the wicks died, she would light candles more.
Then she read deep from a velvet bound book.
I listened and shivered, I winced at the look
on her face as she conjured an old family spell
and spoke secret words, so on us, it fell.

"And then all at once, all the candles blew cold,
and she collapsed in the corner all wrinkled and old.
So I ran from that cabin into sunlight's gold
and now all I remember is all that I've told."

She didn't mind when I leaned over near her.
She didn't stop me from telling my tale.
And all at once, I see the striking resemblance
just as her face turns a ghostly pale.
The revelation just leaves us there speechless.
She takes my hand, though it's shaky and cold.
So there I'm left with the reincarnation,
just a young girl with an old gypsy's soul and Tea Rose.