Many years ago, my mother gave me a set of deep indigo glasses made over a century ago in France. I love the way they hold liquid when upright, and I love even more the way that they hold the light. They have inspired a number of photographs. And then the photograph above inspired a poem.

Nearly eight years ago, in November 2018, a favorite poetry journal, The Orchards, published that poem, “Antique Absinthe Glasses, Inverted, on a Window Ledge.” I included the poem in my third collection, Concertina, in 2019.

Last summer, I received a surprise email through my blog from a gentleman in Allahabad, India, Mr. Rochak Agarwal, a poet, an author and the proprietor of a company called Urban Ganges. This niche venture makes reed diffusers. Mr. Agarwal also has an active practice of reviewing poetry on his site The Poetry Reviewer. His email read, in part, “I read your poem A Cache of Antique Postcards . It moved me in a way that inspired something unexpected. I wish to make a reed diffuser on your poem. A kind reply would highly oblige me.”

A few emails later, and I agreed. I am so glad that I did! I was able to choose the fragrance–combined Sandalwood and Rose. And so, since last autumn, I have been enjoying the unexpected fruit of this collaboration in my office. When I sit down to submit poems to journals–a process necessarily rife with rejection–I take a deep breath filled with fragrance and remind myself that “One just never knows how and when a poem with land.”

This experience of cross-pollination inspired my poem for today, “Distillation.” In the past year alone, Urban Ganges has added many fragrances paired with many poems to their catalog. Perhaps one of your own favorite short poems is part of their line-up? I also enjoy their motto: “When words fade, fragrance speaks the verse.”

Until tomorrow,

LESLIE