Listening to Incense
A spiral from ignited aloe rises,
Translucent, swayed with compound camphor salve
Through azure air that gently opalizes
The things we see and think we know or have.
Soft cloudlets drift from dimness overhead,
Obscuring colors as they wreathe the room
Where scroll-arm chairs are darkly garlanded,
Lamps shaded by tan sandalwood perfume.
Bookshelves and curios recede unseen,
The finest china censer fumes ignored;
Mist remnants of rare cedar supervene,
Their momentary trembling unexplored.
Our incense, nearly dissipated, fades
From sight, but scent wields energy to strike
The lyre and cymbals of burnt serenades;
We blend as friends diverse, gossamer-like.
The Ten Virtues of Incense
—Japanese proverbs extended
Incense purifies body and mind,
Freeing the self to be as designed.
Incense removes uncleanliness,
Restoring youthful manliness
And grateful woman’s gracefulness.
Incense assists meditation,
For scent transcends sophistication.
Incense keeps you alert,
Spicy, fragrant, and pert.
Incense as companion in solitude
Encircles you with warm solicitude.
To worldly haste, incense brings woodland quiet,
Subduing busy cares’ convulsive riot.
Old incense holds potency
Though sense forfeits cogency.
Incense every day
Draws no harm your way.
A sparing use of incense always satisfies.
Plentiful incense wearies not, but fortifies.
A Potpourri of History
In voices faint yet rich, all tribes and nations
Of Adam’s children lift up through the air
Petitions breathing urgent supplications
While incense redolent swells fervent prayer.
The recipe revealed takes equal parts
Of storax, ónycha, and galbanum,
Then making use of the perfumer’s arts,
Joins just as much of clear olibanum.
Such sacred fragrance aids communication
With heaven, for these roots and resins mixed
In burning warmth waft reconciliation
By concord of celestial choices fixed.
That blest bouquet should not serve recreation,
Like medleys of patchouli, clove, and pepper;
The penalty is excommunication:
As chronicled, a king became a leper.
At one time strange aromas plied each street
And round abominable altars hovered,
Until the Machabees, warfare complete,
Brightened the Temple, ancient rites recovered.
Archangel Michael, when dread end times come,
Will raise a golden censer’s smoky whirls
To purify the prayers of Christendom
And send sweet pleas for peace on upward swirls.
Biblical references: Psalm 140 or 141:2, I Kings (or III Kings) 11:8, Exodus 30:34–38, Wisdom 18:21, Sirach 45:16 (or Ecclesiasticus 45:20), II Chronicles (or Paralipomenon) 26:16–21, II Machabees 10:1–3, Revelation (Apocalypse) 8:3–4, quoted in the Gradual for Michaelmas
Margaret Coats lives in California. She holds a Ph.D. in English and American Literature and Language from Harvard University. She has retired from a career of teaching literature, languages, and writing that included considerable work in homeschooling for her own family and others.
Simply lovely Margaret.
Your cloud of words in Listening to Incense swirl and cascade like their subject.
Tracing its ancient place in Potpourri of History not only affirms its liturgical role, but also its proper use (and ingredients) for sanctification and purification.
It’s one of the few things I think can’t be overdone. Double the charcoal, pack the censor and smoke us out.
Thanks, Robert, you sound as if you’ve had experience as thurifer. I’ve noticed they are the ones likely to be smoked out (maybe intentionally so) while carrying out altar server duties. “Listening to Incense” is what Japanese aficionados call the enjoyable process of identifying the ingredients in a social activity somewhat like a game in which everyone wins. They agree it’s something that can’t be overdone!
Exotic, mysterious, reverent, vivid. And I love “burnt serenades”. Thank you Margaret.
These striking serenades had burning instrumentation. Glad you like it, Martin!
Thank you , Margaret, for keeping your readers enlightened by your brilliance!
Thank you, Margaret, for being ever appreciative!
Thank you Margaret, for such beautiful descriptive imagery and giving us a spiritual perspective on incense. I, too, am an incense lover. After much trial and error over the years, the three at the top of my list are Satya Sandalwood, Govinda Shanthimalai Red Nag Champa Argarbatti, and Church Grade Hojari Frankincense (Boswellia sacra from Oman)– all available on Amazon. The sandalwood and nag champa are sticks so I use a coffin burner for them. For the frankincense I use an adjustable burner where the nuggets are placed in a little tray above a tea light which heats them from beneath. In the frankincense there are definitely elements of the church incense which I adored during my various childhood and adult years in the Episcopal church. To me, frankincense truly is a holy odor!!! I appreciate so much your making such a profound and beautiful poetic connection to something that has meant so much to me throughout my life!
Theresa, thanks for your recommendations. I’m glad to know of another enthusiast! In the “Potpourri” above, frankincense is “olibanum,” a Latinized Greek term reflecting the Hebrew “lebonah.” I agree that it has the fullest, richest, holiest associations in my experience. But I began to learn the varieties because of the very plentiful use of incense of many kinds in Japan. The “Listening” poem starts off with a reference to aloewood because it is the most highly valued source of scent there. Of course, many shrines and temples have their own blends, often with sticks offered outdoors for any passerby to burn. And you’ll be happy to hear that the finest paper store in Kyoto, stocking all kinds of supplies for art and poetic calligraphy, also provides a vast array of incense. It’s an inspirational place to visit. I’m very happy you were impressed with my efforts here.
Wow Margaret, I did not know about the terms “olibanum” or the Hebrew “lebonah”– both beautiful terms for frankincense, incense that gives “the fullest, richest, holiest associations” indeed!! You deftly interwove these mysterious and arcane descriptions of various types of incense into your poems! Regarding scriptural references, the one that comes most quickly to my mind is Psalm 14:2: “Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.” Of course the Gospel of Matthew tells us that frankincense was one of the gifts of the Magi to the infant Jesus, being one of the “treasures” presented to him. In Revelation we see “prayers golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of saints” and “incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God.” It does seem that God enjoys the actual odors of offerings and sacrifices– Leviticus tells of an offering of flour, oil, and incense, “to be an offering made by fire, of a sweet savor unto the Lord.” You perfectly capture this prayer-as-incense imagery in the final line of “Potpourri of History”: “And send sweet pleas for peace on upward swirls.” I so, so love all of these connections!!!
There is much to love! I too have always been attracted to the “evening sacrifice.” It would be a calming conclusion to offer “sweet sleep.” My Japanese learning says stimulating spices are the proper incense for the morning, while relaxing woods suit the evening. Someday I hope to write a narrative on incense games, or about the characterizations in a famous chapter of The Tale of Genji. Plenty of poetic material.
This is a beautiful trio of poems about incense, Margaret; and you have so skillfully woven together the several varied scripture references you cited.
Thank you, Cynthia. When I was preparing for this poem, the number of Scriptural references to incense was daunting. Glad I was able to coordinate the ones I chose as most interesting!
The breadth and depth of your knowledge continues to amaze. Being able to package it in such varied and beautiful ways is even more impressive. I can’t imagine what’s coming next but I’m looking forward to it.
I’ll try not to disappoint you! Thanks so much for the compliments on knowledge and on verse.
I never realized that “opalize” is a verb! I also love the use of “cloudlets” and “scroll-arm”.
Just looked up “opalize” in a historical dictionary. It begins to be used in the early 19th century. Thanks, Cheryl, for your attention to special words–I say as I sit in my scroll-arm chair. I’m sure its comfort stimulates writing!
Listening to Incense and A Pottpurri of History are masterful pieces, sprinkled with an aromatic array of alliteration and internal rhyme.
My favourite is the Ten Virtues of Incense, Margaret. Living as I do in the Arab World, perfumes and incense are a part of life, often overdone to the point of choking my comparatively understimulated olfactory organs.
Thanks for the reads.
Thanks, Paul, glad you liked my aromatic but smokeless poems. I’ve heard that Arab men like the very expensive oudh as a personal fragrance. It costs so much because it’s produced only when a fungus causes agar wood to decompose.
By the way, “The Ten Virtues of Incense” has just nine sets of rhyming lines because the final couplet contains both the ninth and tenth virtues. I intended there to be a line space between them, but Evan considered it better to present “sparing use” and “plentiful use” together.
“Listening…” contains remarkably abundant Keatsian diction, with Masefield and Marianne Moore gracenotes; MacLeash and Doolittle are sensed at the edges of “The Ten Virtues…”; and “A Potpourri…” brings forth an almost Shakespearean concoction. Such a headlong plunge into synesthesia, as well, is reminiscent of Rimbeau and Baudelaire.
Recently grandchildren have pressed upon me, via spices and scented candles, the richness of aromas, that craftsman-like you challenge with verbalizing niceties.
Bruce, thank you especially for identifying swirls and whirls of many classic poets in my three works on incense. This is appreciation to the full. The subject has interested several of the Society in recent years, and as you say, it easily plunges into synesthesia. Glad to know your grandchildren have challenged you with candles and spices. For you, like myself, “verbalizing niceties” represent praiseworthy features in poetry, and thus I express further gratitude for your reading and comment.
That’s such a high level of what I can’t truly opine on, involving all the senses, staring from olfactory, of course, but having no real end. Such a pleasure to imbibe.
Thanks, Michael. The pleasure of imbibing (or taking in the scents) is the point of poetry. Therefore my reference to Hanukah is not a message, but I hope the language in the Machabees stanza of “Potpourri” was clear enough for you to understand. The Machabees were those Jewish warriors who “brightened the Temple” by relighting its great menorah (as commemorated at Hanukah every year), and also restored the ancient rite of offering incense. I did not fully realize this myself until doing research in preparation for this poem. Not just the Temple but the land had been profaned by pagan altars saturating the air with foreign incense. This was a bit of neglected history worth mentioning!
Margaret,
I love this trio. It’s a prompt for us to enjoy and seek to be surrounded by something both simple and complex.
Thanks, Laura. Happy trails of varied fragrances to savor during the holidays!
I’ve versified on incense before, but you’ve given us three! It’s a fertile subject for the poetic imagination. “Listening to Incense” is my favorite; it’s atmospheric, conveying a sense of calm and mystery, incorporating sight and sound. The other two I would call didactic. I would like to know more about the Japanese proverbs being extended (and how they’re extended). Yours are more clear than koan, but still make the reader pause and reflect. “A Potpourri” gives us a nice survey of incense imagery throughout Sacred Scripture from the very beginning to the very end, reminding us of the important role it plays (and how it played a much more important role in the ancient world, when lack of modern sanitation methods demanded frequent use of incense).
Thanks, Adam! I remember your “Incense” with admiration. It is a fertile subject for the poetic imagination. When I submitted these three, Evan Mantyk couldn’t help but suggest another. Glad you favored my experiential “Listening to Incense,” and I take “didactic” as a proper genre description, though many poets would find the word a condemnation–though they may be in the habit of didacticism themselves, while writing satire or humor or drama. I have a century-old anthology of the American poets considered “great” at that time, and didactic works were very much in favor with our justly famed predecessors. The Japanese proverbs here are didactic indeed–teaching what’s good about using incense. In the original, they are simple prose statements, with no pretension to syllabic verse and certainly not to koan contemplation. “Koh [incense] removes uncleanliness”; “Age does not change koh’s potency”; “Everyday use of koh is not harmful.” Since rhyme teaches by aiding memory, I expanded these mostly to rhyming couplets, but I also considered syllable count. Thus each of my “Ten Virtues” is a brief poem in a different form, considering accentual meter and the number of syllables.
The one on everyday use is trimeter with 5 syllables in each line.
The one on potency is dimeter with 7 syllables per line. It is the most koan-like because of a contrast between old incense holding potency until burned, and old incense users possibly losing cogency of their senses.
The one on uncleanliness became a tetrameter triplet, because I roughly rhymed “uncleanliness” with “manliness,” and wanted to include a feminine virtue for women incense users.
There are only nine English poems for the “Ten Virtues” because I rhymed and combined the last two proverbs on sparing versus plentiful use.
Many thanks for your interest in the poetic processs!
Margaret, now that I am able to comment again, your incense poems are at once educational and calm my senses with pleasant reminiscences. I really liked the biblical references. Your linguistic and poetic skills seem to be nonpareil.
Thank you for the comment, Roy. I’ve missed you, and wished you the best. Hope the temporary inability has been fully overcome. The Biblical references here are only a small selection of what the Bible says about incense. The citations are meant to cover whatever translation a reader may use, with variant names of books and varying verse numbers all listed, to facilitate finding words I refer to.