Seeking.

Koppitz, Im Wiernerwald, 1910

SMELLING the SNOW

I’ve heard it said

there are those on such

close terms with night

they can smell the very light.

Not only does the moon,

they say, give off a scent

nothing like the sun’s,

but old moon smells

sweeter than slivered new.

Monks of old claimed sin

took the breath away, while

God was wild onion, lilac, pine.

I know a carpenter who

boasts he can sniff out a maple

in a woodlot of ash and oak.

A stalking cat knows

the unsinging sparrow

from the finch. This day

as it returns to Ohio, like

some feathery creature

seeking the very moon and tree

where it was born,

I can smell the snow,

which seems to me,

against the dark trees

moving in slow procession,

a few birds stark and silent,

an essence close to love.

But any old fool can smell love.

David Citino