Poetry Friday is hosted today by Cousin Mary Lee, the Poetry Friday Calendar Maven, whose poem today refers to both percentages and rain. Of course, speaking of Autumn dimness yesterday brought me to that, too (to rain, not to percentages; it may be beyond me to make percentages very poetic). Actually, it brought me not quite to rain, yet, but it did bring me to petrichor… I acknowledge the many times I’ve written about the stuff. It just intrigues me – scientific studies about a smell! Petrichor is meant to be what flowed through the veins of the Greek gods. It’s a mysterious aerosolized oil kind of thing. Though we know so much, it remains a mysterious, delightful smell, which makes us even more grateful for the rain.
Sur l’Odeur
petrichor is a patchwork word
roughed out of cliff crags and compost –
the ‘peh’ is a pebble scraped along,
encountering ‘-tri-‘, the signpost
pointing to ‘-chor.’ A conductor’s chord
bids Earth in ensemble, inhale
and breathe a ‘rich’ scent smorgasbord —
a love song of briars and shale.
Happy Friday.