The 5 senses are so complex, so varied so rich, daunting. Each sense takes infinite lifetimes to live, to experience, to be experienced, being sensed by the mind of gods. Smell reverberates deeply, huge landscapes which either flatten you or keep you grounded, gnarly real. Eyes feel the minutest palpitations of life, whimpering perfectly, alight. Sounds are magic carpets, or bumpy roads, or rivers of passion. Taste, brings us below, tide washed, prime lassitude. Touch, essence of life, from which all other senses spring, careful loss, love’s darling, touch loses herself in her offspring, loses the bucket to the well of love’s air, waiting for breath, quietly talking as s’he waits to be breathed, quivering, alive.
Beautiful Garnet…
Ciao,
Teri
http://www.herestohappywomen.blogspot.com
Indeed!
Oh, I like this. A prose poem.
A friend lost his sense of smell; I can imagine a little bit like a bad cold, but I can’t imagine it in permanence.
loses the bucket to the well of love’s air
Mmmm. There are so many well-turned phrases in this.
Just when I was feeling stressed and anxious, I come across a beautiful piece of writing that literally makes me sit back an take in a deeply-needed breath.
Thank-you, Garnet;)
moose- i’m in hyper metaphor mode these days. I’m barely able to converse without babblinging like this. sounds, shapes, feels of words, with their meaning shifting.
Tammi-glad I was able to help.
Moose, I have no sense of smell. I have a love of music and my eyes see more than most people’s do.
Garnet, the metaphors were lovely and reaching,slightly unfinished I am feeling, as if you might set this down and return to weave within it more of the story of life as you live it. I’d love to see you try to do the same with the physical and metaphorical seeing/touching/hearing/smelling/tasting dancing with each other like a parent and a child.
lhg
ME Strauss, I’ve heard it said that the other senses “compensate” for a lost one. I suppose because I have an acute sense of smell and it is such a part of my life, that is why I have a hard time imagining its absence. One accommodates any change after a while (to some degree) and I’m sure my friend will, too, though he’s still adjusting. And, as you imply, pleasures are plentiful in life and there are surely unseen good things that will recognized eventually – that’s the way it usually unfolds.
Liz- Thankyou for the suggestions. I will follow them into the forrest and play their music near the bell ringers house. All my senses are dull these days, even the sixth and seventh and eigth ones.
Liz and moose- what happens to taste when smell is lost?
It may be different for different individuals, I suppose, depending on the precise nature of the lack. But my friend says his sense of taste is largely gone, too. He can make out certain kinds of taste, like salty, and tangy, I think. But most of it’s gone. Spicy-hot makes his brow sweat without the taste. I feel sad for him. I somehow think it might be different if one was born that way and didn’t have the memories of glorious tastes, but what it must be to suddenly lose all that halfway through… But then, I haven’t actually experienced it. Perhaps Liz has another perspective on it.
moose- What a bummer for your friend!
Yup, I think so. I guess he’ll get used to it. And perhaps one day one of those miraculous resurgences will occur and he’ll get it back. Probably not, though.