-- Smells I Came to Know --

John Herlihy

 Some smells on this earth

Are smells that we never knew.

They grow on us unexpectedly,

As if they arrived out of the blue.

Ever get a whiff of those blue skies,

Hovering over us as a celestial dome.

That everyone, even the day, relies upon,

To give us that unique sense of home.

Recall the smell of crushed leaves,

Crackling colorfully in the wind.

Us kids raised bunches to our nose,

Then gave them back to the wind.

Dying flowers release autumnal smells,

Once beautiful, now in decline.

Their passage to death volumes tell,

Where death itself grieves at their shrine.

Sensitive noses can scent the smell of rain,

The fog, the mist, the low-lying clouds.

To bring a sense of hope, to lessen the pain,

To wrap earth, mind, and heart in shrouds.

Take in the soap-suds odors of the surf,

The salty seaweed smells of the sea.

As if announcing their true value and worth,

Flocks of seagulls crying out look at me.

Even the smell of sex has its life-giving force,

Resembling strangely the odor of cut grass.

Pungent and fresh and inviting of course,

Leaving us wrapped in its ecstasy, alas.

Passing wind carries smells ill-defined,

Of rosemary and hyacinth and thyme.

To inspire dreams to take over the mind,

Wayward odors that somehow chime.

The smell of the forest, of acorns and pine,

Shafts of sunlight peeking bravely through.

Have their own smell I can claim as mine,

As one of the smells no one ever knew.

Forget not those smells of remembrance,

Lilacs and cake frosting recall my mother.

Father’s cigar smoke puts me in a trance,

Axle grease and dead fish recall my brother.

Whether sweet, expectant, sad or bitter,

All of them smells I never really knew.

Until I made my way through my own life,

And carry them with me as the wind blew.

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(c) John Herlihy 24 May 2019