You hear your dog’s excitement from your scent even before you slide the key in
Just like blind ants find their way to sugar, like sharks to blood, bees to boughs
But smell is a gift we gave up somewhere on the savannah
In exchange for tender fingertips and sharper eyes
In a parallel universe
Where we kept our olfaction but lost our prejudices
Maybe nature would reach our bloodstream before trans-fats
Maybe we would be a better species: more earthy, more in touch
Happiness would be a face as much as a chemical signature —
Maybe we could sniff our way to salvation
Childhood would smell like laughter and sharpening pencils
And youth like cycle grease and second hand smoke
Life would smell like ink and portraits and sins and regrets
And love like a new word invented for a new feeling
The beloved would smell like bedtime stories and tradewinds trapped in your coffee
Like a silent garden and the ferocity of a late monsoon
He would smell like poetry was oozing from his pores, like the motors of the universe running on his lips and fingertips
Kishore Kumar
(from my notebook)
kilroykishore 