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Posts Tagged ‘amygdala’

This Is How

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 25, 2023| 8 Comments »


It’s the chill air, say the scientists,
that allows the nose to delineate
the musky smell of autumn,
not like the warm summer air
that traps and mashes
all the aromatic molecules together.
No, it’s the constricting nature of cold
that lets us pick out the sweet loam
of dried grass and peaty scent of sugars
breaking down in the leaves.
 
But it’s memory that says,
Isn’t this smell wonderful.
It’s the amygdala that relates it
to the childhood joy
of skipping through gutters of oak leaves
and the adult joy of jumping
in great piles of cottonwood leaves
with my son.
 
In this golden moment,
I’m every age I’ve ever been in the fall,
and every version of me basks
in low autumn light. This is how
I breathe in the fragrance of death
and decay and moldering,
and think isn’t it wonderful, this life.

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