Crouching in the shadows
its form blends into the pitch.
Pads perching on pillows,
lightly as an idea as not
to break a thought...
Whose scent fills in the breathing air,
sourcelessly seeping like smoke
with out fire. The spilt perfume vial,
wafting with ripe open stamen
acid breeze that chills your nape.
Of carnal mists and earth dusts,
pores choking on essence
smoking roar that singes
leaves, flashing green torches
smoldering for three days-be four-
Envy eyes curious to find
fresh tracks laid and lining
the way to walk without a
sound, reason. Knowing
you know it's there.
Indivisible pre-occupation with you,
incensed and bemused by notions
elusive to all traps set, over-gliding
to terminal reality
true never twice.
I prey the stalking, we share,
means we smell the same.
Image by Singer Ron U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
“...understand the nature of that illustrious vernacular that Dante claims to be tracking down like a perfumed panther, 'whose scent is everywhere but which is nowhere to be seen.' (DVE I, xvi, 1).”**-Umberto Eco (From the Tree to the Labyrinth, p 297, Harvard University Press, 2014).
** “It was thought in the Middle ages that the panther had a richly perfumed breath and left a trace of its passage wherever it had been. But, for the hunters who attempted to trap it, it was practically impossible to locate. So they would smell its perfume but never success in catching it. This explains how the panther became a metaphor for poetry itself.”-Umberto Eco
