Fragrance

SOURCE

“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violets shed on the heel that has crushed it.” — Mark Twain

We are exploring the theme of Fragrance in our poems today. So highlight the sensory experience of fragrance in your lines. Walt Whitman does that in the second section of his Song of Myself:

 “Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes,

I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.”

 Lines from Emily Dickinson:

 

 657

 

Essential Oils — are wrung —
The Attar from the Rose
Be not expressed by Suns — alone —
It is the gift of Screws —

The General Rose — decay —
But this — in Lady's Drawer
Make Summer — When the Lady lie
In Ceaseless Rosemary —

Another interesting poem is Christopher Morley’s Smells. A fun filled one. You’ll find much playfulness there.

You can either delve deeper and go beyond scent or be subjective, personal, focusing on specific odor / odors you love. Scent of favorite food does whet our appetite sometimes. Smiles. You might want fragrance to be used as an evocative tool conjuring  places, people, objects, events and even time; like I remember my mother’s incense-burning every evening for worshipping in her corner shrine. That particular brand reminds me of evenings I spent there in my parents’ home.

 In times of wars or any political upheaval we are so disoriented that we smell darkness at a simple dawn; it WILL appear bloody while during peace-time we have jasmine nights.

 You might directly address a perfume, a vial of perfume I mean. Perfume lingo is most welcome. In this connection I would like to add that even novels, essays and poems in the past has inspired perfume branding suggesting that fragrance is not fragrance alone but something else.

 “Jardins” created a perfume by the name of “GiGi” which was a tribute to the Parisian girl made famous in the novella by Collette.

 So here we are now for an aromatic, poetic experience.

 

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