smells

Aromatherapy emerged some years back, and my first thought was here's another gimmick. We don't always cling to our first thoughts, though, and I have relaxed some. There are so many powerful fragrance experiences in life, why not use these with intention for healing purposes? I still know little about the art or science of aromatherapy, but I know of personal olfactory experiences. For many decades I did not drink coffee, but just walking down the grocery store aisle where the coffee beans were nestled was a happy wakeup. Spicy peppers in a garden, pine trees, fresh mint or rosemary near the outdoor spigot all are bright fragrances. The first break in the peel of an orange is like opening a gift - such a poignant scent. Sandalwood inspires romance. Then there are some scents that bellow - keep away!

Subtle smells, some that we may not even notice, of our furniture or blankets, reassure us that we are in familiar territory, that we are safe at home. A child clutches his Felix the Cat toy close to his face, feeling the security of his familiar fabric companion. The smell of a cake baking in the oven, or fresh bread reassures us all that we are loved, that we shall be fed.

The complexity of a forest is absorbed by the senses. In one breath, smell the earth, the mouldering leaves, the different trees and grasses, the stones, the change in the weather. Smell the deer that wander across the tumbling creek, take in the wildness of the bear who just lumbered through. Living in the city, I hold on to the memory of wilderness.

There were two farms I knew as a kid that had about the same number of cows - forty or less. The farmers were very different in their ways of managing their livestock. The younger farm treated the livestock as a business. The cattle were well-fed. There was a trough for sorgham (an unrefined cane molasses) that the cows were offered. There was fine alfalfa hay in the winter when the grasses in the fields were less abundant. The older farm also fed the cows well - a mix of sweet-smelling grains to supplement their diet as needed. Both farms had salt licks out in the pasture - about a one foot cube of solid salt - unrefined - a kind of dark rose color perhaps due to other minerals. I don't know. The animals did slowly whittle the cubes down with their tongues over the year.

On the younger farm, the owners - good people - were not farmers. They hired help, but also oversaw the operation. They used electric fences to keep the cattle in the pasture, and cattle prods to get the cattle to the barn or corral. They wrestled some of the animals to get them in the corral for vaccinations. When they touched an animal, it was to get him or her onto a trailer, or from one side of the pasture to the next. They were novices, and seemed to rely on force to succeed. On the older farm, the owner was the farmer; farming was his calling in life. He knew every cow by name. When he called they came, and he fed them one by one by name. There was no sense that he dominated his herd - he was there every day, and they got up together before dawn. The cows were waiting at the barn when he showed up. They rubbed up against his arm, and he stroked their heads or backs. They seemed to speak the same language.

what if one cold day
i had apple pie for breakfast
apple pie for lunch
& saved a piece of crust
for the grackles
pacing about the parking lot?

When I think of an Eskimo, I see an image that was popular at one time - a calm pale brown face framed by the fur-lined hood of their traditional garb. We were told in school that the Eskimo people who lived way up north near the Arctic circle built their houses using blocks of ice. These houses, small domes with a tunnel-shaped entry, were known as igloos. The Eskimo had fifty words for snow - or maybe it was a hundred - for different varieties of the frozen precipitation - slush, tiny crystals, pebbles, big fat soft flakes. Maybe there were poetic words too, and words for the time of year, and how the snow fell - stormy wind or no wind. They had no word for green, I heard. In their language, greens were labeled as shades of blue. Perhaps in their northern homes, green wasn't seen very much, and wasn't very vivid. Did they every day of the year come out of their igloos to a world of blue sky and shades of white ice?

Living in south Louisiana where snow made only one or two timid appearances in a winter, if at all, it was fascinating to wonder about a culture that had so many words for snow, and homes of ice that did not melt.

voices like birds

he murmured
and she replied
as they walked up the sidewalk.
it was a saturday night -
their voices carried
to the windows of houses
and around the shrubs
and disappeared
in the clean air
below the yellow moon
who wore a scarf of mist
and a hat of cloud -
it was that cold.
the little boy
behind a window
tucked in bed
beneath a quilt
heard the voices
floating near.
The words weren't familiar -
he knew not what they said
but the trickle of conversation
up and down and pause and start
sounded like birds in a tree
warm in their feather coats
content in the cold bright night
and the boy slid -
all is calm -
to sleep.

emu

There was a lot of publicity in Texas in the 1980s regarding the emu. The emu is a tall, flightless Australian bird five to six feet high (similar to the African ostrich who has a reputation of burying its head in the sand when threatened). The emu was advertised as a sure-fire investment for ranchers. The emu produced very large eggs, and its skin made a fine leather. Emu oil was promoted as a product with many health benefits. People who invested in emus were promised a big profit.

We had the opportunity to meet a few emus in what turned out to be a brief era. In our rural neighborhood in central Texas, a pair of emus lived up the hill across from us. They would come to the fence as we walked by. The emu I remember best, though, is one we met when visiting friends in northeast Texas - the Tyler area. This one walked up to the fence also, and we and our little kids admired its height, big quaint face, and gait. Its legs were like stilts. As we turned to go, the emu started to call to us.  The surprising booming sound stopped us in our exit. It was not a call from the bird's throat but seemed to originate in a lower part of the neck, or perhaps even the torso. The call sounded like a low-pitched drum, a moving sound that carried far. It carried far across the field. It carried across time, the history of its species. And the drum beat carried right to the hearts of us humans, standing near the creatures living far from their origins.

raindrops

raindrops that streamed
down windowpanes
not so long ago
now sit on glass
and ponder