Shel Graves' Sensorium

Taste: tumeric spinach potato; tuna   Sight: black matte mustang; a single bright star on the pale grey and blue pastel evening sky; purple lilacs blowing in the wind on a grey day; 1963 Studebaker Avanti; a1971 Kharmann Ghia.   Sound: a ticking clock   Touch: lotion between the toes   Smell: lilacs in the house   Extra: "I am a working fisher | of verses, living and wet, | that go leaping in my veins." — Pablo Neruda; "Yo soy obrero pescador | de versos vivos y mojados | que siguen saltando en mis venas." — Pablo Neruda; "The Garden of the Rose Apple Tree for You Oh, My Darling"; "Man must be in permanent revolt against limits of all kinds...[to] transform the world." — surrealist Andre Breton   Grateful for: Humility

Taste: raw almonds, coconut milk   Sight: little gray bird red head Sound: an older woman's gentle storytelling voice; xylophone tinkling trills, oboe- Weightless by Erika Janunger "Surgeons must be very careful When they take the knife! Underneath their fine incisions Stirs the culprit, — Life!" — Emily Dickinson "Love" "Love is anterior to life,  Posterior to death,  Initial of creation, and The exponent of breath." — Emily Dickinson   Touch: sunlight, grass, soft spring air   Smell: sweet, sour breath   Extra: words and their many beautiful, terrible permutations, Kathleen Flenniken's poem " Green Run "   Grateful for: books and reading

Taste: sunflower seed butter, coconut milk Sight: florescent green rhododendrons, hot pink azaleas   Sound: sublunary; rhymes Touch: circling the powdery brush round my face   Smell: hyacinth   Extra: " Ernest Callenbach, Last Words to an America in Decline "; "What if despite appearances the world is not broken? The world is hidden and we have been born with the capacity to make a difference." — Rachel Naomi Remen MD "And the heart is not a valentine. The heart is an organ of perception, a way of seeing which allows you recognize the hidden wholeness in others — despite appearances." — Rachel Naomi Remen MD Grateful for: poetry

Taste: spinach, broccoli, and brown rice; citrus sour throat   Sight: golden sun on half a crow's back   Sound: birdsong   Touch: corduroy clothed knees   Smell: lilacs Extra: "The grass, the clouds, the mountains and the sea, All living things that walk, swim, creep, or fly, Were gods; the sun had homage, and the moon Her worshipper." — Queen Mab , Percy Bysshe Shelley "Death is a gate of dreariness and gloom, That leads to azure isles and beaming skies And happy regions of eternal hope. Therefore, O Spirit! fearlessly bear on." — Queen Mab , Percy Bysshe Shelley   Grateful for: spring

Taste: mint   Sight: frothy vials of blood; Weightless by Erika Janunger   Sound: Weightless by Erika Janunger   Touch: a soft breeze   Smell: gentians   Extra: the goldenrod lightening bolt veined tattoo; rescuing an emaciated baby elephant from a flooding pet/toy store, but leaving behind the fuzzy brown baby bear   Grateful for: Free comic book day! The first Saturday in May.