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Posts Tagged ‘scent’

Ascent

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on July 9, 2023| 6 Comments »


 
There is a long ridgeline
below the towering spire
of Lizard Head summit
where the alpine clover
grow in vast pink mounds
and their sweet scent
suffuses the high, thin air
with a perfume so strong
not even today’s wind
could blow it away.
For long moments we were held
by the fragrance
the way insects
are preserved in amber—
it stilled us completely.
We belonged to the beauty.
With deep, intentional breaths
we pulled the floral sweetness
into our beings
until everything was clover,
clover, clover.
 

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Letting Go of Knowing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on June 13, 2023| 14 Comments »


 
 
Walking in the sweet honey
and musky scented woods,
I keep searching for what smells
so good, until finally I let
myself be content to walk
in the woods with a honey scent,
and I give up for a time
on naming the world,
and let a step be a step,
let a scent be a scent
and know only I am lucky,
lucky to walk in the musky woods,
the air so refreshing, so sweet.

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All of It

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 15, 2023| 5 Comments »


 
 
Broken,
bare-hearted
naked in the catastrophe,
I smell it,
the sweet perfume
of apricot blossoms
wafting across
the leafless world.

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What No One Knew Tonight

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 18, 2022| 4 Comments »


for Shushana Castle

Anyone with a link
could watch the pixels of her
as they streamed through the ether,
but no one in the world knew she wore oud,
a musky, pungent, smoky scent
that comes from the agar tree.
A scent said to carry prayers.
A scent said to bring serenity.
A scent derived from resin
that appears only when the heartwood of agar
has been infected by fungus, attacked.
It is not lost on her she wears
the perfume of a wounded heart—
rich and heavy, warm and animalistic.
It fills her nose with an olfactory story
that says, I have survived, and damned
if I won’t make of the wound something sweet.
She dons the gift like a secret worn on her sleeve—
something anyone could perceive
if only they come close enough—
there’s so much more than what one can see.

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Olfactory

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on February 26, 2020| Leave a Comment »

 

for Kyra

 

February ends with the fragrance of change—

not quite the fresh earthy scent of rain,

but no longer the white sterility of winter.

It’s the damp aroma of long dead grass

and the must of soil as it starts to unfreeze,

the bright tang of Gemini distilled from the sky

and the hint that someday there will be green.

 

This is the perfume I imagine you wearing today

as you move from the darkest hours of fear

into the chapter of healing. Yes, I smell it

as I hug you, the scent of making room for the world,

the scent of resilience, of beauty yet to come.

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Hoping His Eventually Comes Soon

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 2, 2020| 6 Comments »

 

 

Allspice. Basil. Bay. Caraway. There were mornings

my boy and I spent on the floor pulling herbs and spices

from the drawer. We’d open the jars and close our eyes

and gently sniff. Cardamom. Cilantro. Cinnamon. Dill.

I took out the cayenne and red pepper flakes

and put them up high on an uppermost shelf.

Some agonies are easy to prevent.

We focused on Fennel. Fenugreek. Mint.

 

Today, he comes home having breathed in deeply

the scent of heartbreak, a jar I would have hidden if I could,

but all of us know it eventually, feel the burn, the inner sear.

Beyond safety, thyme, turmeric, there is fire, and once inhaled,

it hurts everywhere. Eventually we respect the heat as a gift.

Eventually the heart learns to walk through it.

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One Deep Purple

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on June 2, 2019| Leave a Comment »

 

 

old lilac bush

beside the highway

scent of one hundred springs

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