Living through the Nose

This little poem goes out to all those
whose lives are guided mostly by
their olfactory senses. It is intended
to usher in a new era in which
the nose is no longer denigrated,
in which the delights of scent are
finally brought to the fore, in which
all smells, like all opinions, have
their own place and their own
reasons for being. From the most
foul to the most pleasing, the aromas
of this doomed earth will finally be
raised up to their rightful places
in the stars, in the pantheon of
greatness, in the history books of
what our lives once smelled like.
They used to smell like mystery,
didn't they? Wasn't every morning,
in some earlier parts of our lives,
a stroll through a fragrant garden
on a summer morning at the coast,
nothing to worry about, only smells,
intoxicating in their necessariness,
bewildering in their timelessness,
mystifying? Where else do we find
mystery now? What does our own
terror really smell like? Or success?
Will we able to tell by the smell
of things when the moment comes
that we finally make it? This poem
is for all of us who can't but hope so.

(2007)