The Bowl of Roses

Summary

You've witnessed anger flaring; seen two boys

who've balled their bodies up, becoming something

that was hatred, thrashing on the earth

like animals who've been attacked by bees —

exaggerating, over-acting players;

careening horses breaking down, collapsing,

eyeballs rolling as they bare their teeth

as if to peel their skulls straight through their muzzles.

But now you know how that may be forgotten:

before you stands a bowl that's filled with roses.

It cannot be forgotten — wholly filled

with being and with bowing's uttermost;

offering that cannot ever give;

stasis that might be ours — our utmost, too.

Still life. An endlessly expanding-outward,

needing space, but never taking space

from space that things surrounding it diminish.

And only barely limned, as if recessed;

all purely inward, laced with tenderness,

and self-illuminating to the edge.

Do we know anything that's quite like this?

And then, like this: that such a feeling comes

from flower petals touching flower petals?

And this: that one should open like an eyelid,

while underneath lie only further eyelids

shuttered tight, as if through ten-fold sleep

they had to tamp in place some inner vision.

And this above all else: that through these petals,

the light must pass. That from a thousand skies,

they slowly filter out that drop of darkness

in whose fiery glow the tangled bunch

of stamens stirs, and rises up erect.

And that movement in these roses: see

the gestures from such miniscule deflections

that they'd stay unseen did not their rays

soon run apart, into the universe.

Sieh jene weiße, die sich selig aufschlug

und dasteht in den großen offnen Blättern

wie eine Venus aufrecht in der Muschel;

und die errötende, die wie verwirrt

nach einer kühlen sich hinüberwendet,

und wie die kühle fühllos sich zurückzieht,

und wie die kalte steht, in sich gehüllt,

unter den offenen, die alles abtun.

Und was sie abtun, wie das leicht und schwer,

wie es ein Mantel, eine Last, ein Flügel

und eine Maske sein kann, je nach dem,

und wie sie's abtun: wie vor dem Geliebten.

Was können sie nicht sein: war jene gelbe,

die hohl und offen daliegt, nicht die Schale

von einer Frucht, darin dasselbe Gelb,

gesammelter, orangeröter, Saft war?