Shel Graves' Sensorium

Taste: green avocado; turnip-y, carrot-y water chestnut, crunchy sunchokes; chocolate lava cake Sight: black and red beribboned Demonia shoes; fist-sized Thumbelina carrots Touch: rounded warty sunchokes Sound: British theologian Karen Armstrong defending her views on religion in an interview, "It's not just a bee in my own bonnet. I've been studying this for 20 years." Smell: sweet, floral perfume on a passersby; the absence of Extra: the red skirt with the shiny tulip-shaped pattern; the wall across the waves; the tide coming in off the lake; Alicen does yoga; reincarnation as a dolphin: an aquatic, auditory, emotional, highly-sexual being with a 10 million year old spherical brain; growing rosemary and cilantro in the side garden; "It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much — the wheel, N...

Taste: Pear vodka in the Kyoto Blossom martini; monosodium glutamate is a neurotransmitter; pineapple guava-a small sweet round pear; soft, subtle, woodsy spice, faintly sweet, evocative of squirrels, elves, dryads: cinnamon; grilled butter; mango liqueur; absinthe a distillation of: anise, curry and cinnamon; Carmelita Touch: hot sliding beads of metal like a snake; tight, hamstrung muscles, after running eight miles and dancing all night; rolling relaxation, the rapid flow of the gyroscope, steady flow of the waves, and mirage-like memory of feeling the flow and tilt of the waves when on the land again like a light, lucid drunk; the lift and rise of the boat; my body alone floating in the sea; my husband's hand; a gentle face massage, light fingertips to forehead Sight: a fey gothic boy; dimpled flesh twisting in yoga poses; sparks and flame; an athletic 25-year-old man somersaults naked every morning on the trampoline; a blue and white lit weeping tree adorned with paper wis...

Taste: food eaten at the Camlann Medieval Fair : cinnamon spiced cherries and beans flavored with an anise gravy; and on ordinary days cilantro Touch: my foot tucked comfortably into the crevasse of my knee and thigh; silky, the taller dog's head, Story, is softer than all others Sight: traditionalist colors: burgundy, forest green, walnut, cream, and the matching russet, black and white dog with dewy eyes, erect ears, attentive posture like a painting; a yoga studio's cathedral ceiling; dancing boy hips, straight lines becoming suggestive waves Smell: blooms of ground chocolate as if it is growing in the air, Theo Chocolate ; sweet, floral - jasmine, lilies? my mother's silk dresses, Oscar de la Renta draped down an empty hallway; The grocery store aisles evoke memories of the orchard rows, the filled bushels, the cider press, the murky gallons. It's time to eat apples.; calming, sensual pine massage oil disconcertingly on the dog's head; burnt sage to purify a...

Taste: strong sweet, sour, earthy bite: parsnips; black pepper sauce on tofu Touch: arms straightening, fingertips reaching, ribs stretching, spine elongating, fingers spreading, knees and toes lifting, thighs lengthening, heels grounding; fingertips to the floor re-reaffirming our connection to the earth Sight: paws twitching; the squirrel's tail unfurling, fluttering like a flag in the wind; the braininess of Savoy cabbage; speckled black on white Holstein tofu Smell: sour, sweat, jalapeño water Sound: Westminster Quarters — All through this hour/Lord be my guide/That by thy power/No foot shall slide — Handel’s Messiah; snick, squish, splash: the sound of walking on a path of soggy wood chips, raindrops patter on leaves Extra: an orange russet; the Greek word for body: soma — the home of the spirit; "...streamed into Moscow as blood flows to the heart." — War and Peace , Tolstoy

Taste: Mighty O Rum Donuts; golden beets with black pepper Touch: a hand pressed to the sole of a foot Sight: butternut squash, rose fingerling potatoes, golden beets, tumeric-colored green cabbage; drishti, or gaze point; glistening wet skin; tri-layered clouds skimming across the sky Smell: cooking sausage Sound: whirr, rup, rup, rup; snuggery Extra: "And yet what are we to do about this terribly significant business of other people, which gets bled of the significance we think it has and takes on a significance that is ludicrous, so ill-equipped are we all to envision one another's interior workings and invisible aims?" — Philip Roth; a blue, white and black striped dolphin and the morning news, " Scientists say dolphins should be treated as non-human persons ," phys.org, Thomas White, author of "In Defense of Dolphins"