NPM: Day 20

This link, an article from The Atlantic called "Making Perfume from the Rain", has been open on my desktop for a while now, and it's not even the first time. Since the magazine first published it, and I first read it, in 2015, it's been reposted more than once on the Atlantic's Facebook page, and I always re-read and savor it. It's a poem in itself. Here's a taste:

"Every storm blows in on a scent, or leaves one behind. The metallic zing that can fill the air before a summer thunderstorm is from ozone, a molecule formed from the interaction of electrical discharges—in this case from lightning—with oxygen molecules. Likewise, the familiar, musty odor that rises from streets and storm ponds during a deluge comes from a compound called geosmin. A byproduct of bacteria, geosmin is what gives beets their earthy flavor. Rain also picks up odors from the molecules it meets. So its essence can come off as differently as all the flowers on all the continents—rose-obvious, barely there like a carnation, fleeting as a whiff of orange blossom as your car speeds past the grove. It depends on the type of storm, the part of the world where it falls, and the subjective memory of the nose behind the sniff."

Isn't that glorious? I love that those things are true, and I love the words the author, Cynthia Barnett, chose to describe them. And I love that she traveled 8000 miles to India to learn about the ancient tradition of making perfume that smells like the rain.

Go read this whole beautiful article!

I chose a few words from it to create this found poem.


fragrance of monsoons

capture the scent of rain
petrichor
mitti attar
scented earth
leather bottle
the moment you put it on your skin
smell of India

found by Ruth, from thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com, in "Making Perfume from the Rain," by Cynthia Barnett, The Atlantic,  April 22nd, 2015.

Unfortunately, I've never been to India - though I've read so many novels set there that I feel as though I have - but these are some pictures I took in a rainstorm in Kentucky last summer.


Here's today's line for the Progressive Poem.