Cross- or Polyrhythm

Abstract

Once upon a time I was sitting in the garden. The lilacs and the lilies of the valley united their sweet aromas to a smiling fragrance of spring. A friend came, remarked on the beautiful scent and unconcernedly lit a cigarette. This time, the odors did not merge to form a consonance; here were the flowers, there was the poignant tobacco smoke, foreign to one another and almost hostile. Yet I took them in, each in its own right; I focused my attention now on the blooms, now on the cigarette, without attempting at a fusion and without needing one. It was a pleasant coexistence, not an integration, of different olfactory perceptions.