The Wind in Your Hair - March 27 2024

 

The Wind In Your Hair

March 27 2024



In spring

it’s the earthy smell

of newly thawed soil,

air

scented with flowers.

Summer is fresh cut grass,

rain

on hot dry pavement.

And fall is bittersweet

with wood-smoke

and burning leaves.

But winter is Antarctica,

white,

lifeless,

odourless;

frozen air

resting densely

on an endless expanse of snow.

I once read

that after too long an absence

one thing astronauts miss

is a breeze on the face

wind in the hair.

And, I imagine, the smells of nature

in a cramped metal capsule

that contains human bodies

breathing recycled air;

who pine for showers

but ration sponge baths instead.

In April

you can close your eyes

and still know what month.

But in winter

you’re an explorer

headed to the pole,

an astronaut

high above the planet

with the walls closing in;

and the atavistic urge

to breath in the earth

leaves you aching with nostalgia,

longing

for what you’ve lost.

You only notice

when it’s gone.

Who knew there was a word for that. “Rain on hot dry pavement”: petrichor.