Perfumed Night

A combination of drifting scents fill the night. There is a faint hint of jasmine, but it is mingled with other flowers and with something that resembles daphne, though it is too late in the season for that plant to be emitting any fragrance. If I knew what combination of notes were in this spontaneous perfume, I would bottle it. It is both subtle and assertive, sweet and sharp. It can only be the happy accident of many plants blooming together which in a normal spring would not. The night becomes exotic, a shadowy garden concealing secrets, its moon-dappled alcoves the home of strange birds, its dim pathways leading to still pools where unknown creatures drink, its leaves decorated with beetles glittering in colors that have no names. This scent intoxicates and liberates the imagination, fevering the mind with suggestions. I must retreat indoors to preserve the spell, as morning twilight soon will wake the common robins and reveal the everyday pines.