Smells unleashed from the spring thaw lift us into a frenzied desperation for movement. The air is so clean you can smell the difference between smooth rock and jagged. You can smell water running over shale. Lichen smells sweet. The green lichen smells different from black. In the spring you smell last fall’s death and this year’s growth, as the elder lichen shows the young how to grow. The freeze traps life and stops time. The thaw releases it. We can smell the footprints of last fall and the new decomposition of all who perished in the grips of winter. Global warming will release the deeper
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