This morning I was positing the following: assuming human civilizations remain intact and continue to advance technologically, will it be possible, relatively soon, for humans to experience firsthand (firstpaw) how dogs and cats--for example--see, hear, and especially smell the world? Might the technicians be able to hook us up to a dog-simulation program and trick our brains and noses into detecting odors as a dog does? I assume the experience would be overwhelming; it might be too much for the brain to handle. In the case of cats, smelling and tasting apparently overlap in an official capacity. Sometimes you'll catch a cat smelling something and then opening its mouth as if to breathe in the odor. Apparently there's something called "the Jacobson organ" in the mouth, and it "tastes" odors. Seeing cats do this is amusing because they look like they are about to chuckle, but no sound comes out. I reckon the difference between tasting and smelling is pretty arbitary anyway, as we need our noses in order to taste things "properly," and it's all about molecules hitting a sensor-system, isn't it?
This has all been by way of introducing a poem about the nose:
Nose
Like a cliff dwelling, it hangs
from the sheer visage. Long ago,
Coyote caught a whiff of Moon,
has been yipping, nose to sky, ever since.
Long ago, our kind caught
spore of something dangerous
and sweet in woods, traded
innocence for perplexity, straight up,
has been on the move ever since, pulled
along by scent of something just ahead and
wanted. Come on, catch up, exhorts
Nose, drive that thing to tree. What
it is, why you want it: these
can wait. Smell it? Get it.
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