Wednesday, April 27, 2005

How green smells

I've been traipsing up and down the net, along the cloister, in the woods, looking for the smell of green. I know it's there because the other night around 11 I was outside transplanting seedlings when I caught a wiff of it. At first I thought it was just a night smell of lemon drop, but since I am not where lemons would be I knew it was more complicated. It's too early for the magnolia, (and they are intocicating - something like 9 parts vanilla plus 1 part lemon, and throw in memories of voluptuous lovemaking and thats pretty much a basic magnolia smell - walk into THAT smell unexpectedly and it will have you heaving on the ground like a fish out of water! I was biking with someone when that happened and he couldn't get me away from the tress for the longest time!)

This was the edge of that on the night air, more lemon then the after smell of grasses - I looked for the name that came to me: chyphre - couldn 't find it anywhere! Finally, I found a reference for a perfume created by Coty nearly 100 years ago. I would be willing to sell a body part for a bottle of that! It was also named Chyphre, it does mean a green smell, so I do have a reference afterall. The closest I have to capturing these smells are candles that are named "moss"
or "fresh mown grass or hay", and of course, walking in the night, near woods and hoping for a breath of air to cover me. I will track down my elusive Chyphre - I think I can order it as an oil somewhere. So dangerous! If it were rubbed on the backside of a warthog I could fall in love with no problem at all.

3 Comments:

At 6:39 PM, Blogger Believer said...

You snuck up on me with that last line! LOL!

 
At 12:00 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

I remember Spring, fourteen
The rain outside my room
Was filled with trembling midnight hush
With silver-tongued perfume
It smelled too much of everything
Too real, to swelled and round
Too filled with every, all, complete
Too deep and too profound
The wind was wet and rapt with much
My heart beat double time
It caused the words caged by my lips
To tumble out in rhyme
It caused the breath caged by my lungs
To want to burst and sing
I thought that I smelled love
When all I really smelled was
Spring


Edwina Peterson Cross

 
At 7:59 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't know it if will help you, but today I'm actually wearing a scent called Chyphre from Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs. :)

I'm sure it's not the same scent as the one you mention but it's got a certain something to it.

 

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