Invocation (re-edited)

In the beginning was a Smell, actually.

Probably: Soil.

Or Armpit.

Mother’s musty armpit. Her –

Acridity.

Acrid is the smell of man, and of that we shan’t be ashamed.

From Acridity we come and to Acridity we shall go.

Praise be to Acridity then. And long may it live.

And high might we raise it – lo! to the very stars – why not?

No Thing but a smell. A sense. A semblance. A kind of. Maybe:

             What it was. What we thought it was. In the end, dear God, what we hoped it was.

Hope? – man has no more need of hope.  

For Man has smell, and smell eternal.

            Man-as-Smell Eternal.

Man, the great sounder of things, the great smeller of things.

Man-who-Feels he shall henceforth be known amid the stars: as Armpit, as Soil.