anya mccoy: 1 post

Fragrance of the orange
Flowering at last in June
Wafts through the summer night
The memory of scented sleeves
Of someone long ago.
Kokinshu III:139 Anonymous , from collection of Japanese poetry compiled in the 10th century AD

Fragrances that can make one fall deep into a daydream are to be cherished, particularly because they are rare. Over the past week, I found myself dabbing Temple on my wrists and pushing aside my fragrance chemistry papers.  Instead I was reaching for anthologies of Japanese poetry and I knew that I had found my potion. Temple made me wonder if the scented sleeves of the poem were perfumed with kyara/agarwood incense; it made me remember a visit to the Mahalakshmi shrine in Mumbai where incense offered to the goddess was then distributed among the worshippers; it made me yearn for a perfume souk in Damascus where one can still find fine aged oud beside the knockoffs of Hugo Boss. All of this in a drop of perfume… If that is not special, I do not know what is.

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