Of asphodel, that greeny flower, like a buttercup upon its branching stem-save that it's green and wooden- I come, my sweet, to sing to you.
We lived long together a life filled, if you will,with flowers. So that I was cheered when I came first to knowthat there were flowers also in hell. TodayI'm filled with the fading memory of those flowers that we both loved, even to this poorcolorless thing- I saw it when I was a child-little prized among the living but the dead see, asking among themselves:
What do I remember that was shaped as this thing is shaped?while our eyes fill with tears. Of love, abiding loveit will be telling though too weak a wash of crimson colors itto make it wholly credible. There is something something urgentI have to say to you and you alone but it must waitwhile I drink in the joy of your approach, perhaps for the last time.
And so with fear in my heart I drag it outand keep on talking for I dare not stop. Listen while I talk onagainst time. It will not be for long.
I have forgot and yet I see clearly enough somethingcentral to the sky which ranges round it. An odorsprings from it! A sweetest odor! Honeysuckle! And nowthere comes the buzzing of a bee! and a whole flood of sister memories!
Only give me time, time to recall them before I shall speak out.
Give me time, time.
When I was a boy I kept a book to which, from timeto time, I added pressed flowers until, after a time,
I had a good collection. The asphodel, forebodingly,among them. I bring you, reawakened,a memory of those flowers. They were sweet when I pressed themand retained something of their sweetness a long time.
It is a curious odor, a moral odor, that brings menear to you. The color was the first to go.
There had come to me a challenge, your dear self,mortal as I was, the lily's throat to the hummingbird!
Endless wealth, I thought, held out its arms to me.
A thousand tropics in an apple blossom. The generous earth itselfgave us lief. The whole world became my garden!
But the sea which no one tends is also a gardenwhen the sun strikes it and the waves are wakened.
I have seen it and so have you when it puts all flowersto shame. Too, there are the starfish stiffened by the sunand other sea wrack and weeds. We knew that along with the rest of itfor we were born by the sea, knew its rose hedges to the very water's brink.
There the pink mallow grows and in their season strawberriesand there, later, we went to gather the wild plum.
I cannot say that I have gone to hell for your lovebut often found myself there in your pursuit.
I do not like it and wanted to be in heaven. Hear me out.
Do not turn away.
I have learned much in my life from books and out of themabout love. Death is not the end of it.
There is a hierarchy which can be attained, I think,in its service. Its guerdon is a fairy flower;a cat of twenty lives. If no one came to try it the worldwould be the loser. It has been for you and meas one who watches a storm come in over the water. We have stoodfrom year to year before the spectacle of our lives with joined hands.
The storm unfolds. Lightning plays about the edges of the clouds.
The sky to the north is placid, blue in the afterglowas the storm piles up. It is a flower that will soon reachthe apex of its bloom. We danced, in our minds,and read a book together. You remember? It was a serious book.
And so books entered our lives.
The sea! The sea! Always when I think of the seathere comes to mind the Iliad and Helen's public faultthat bred it. Were it not for that there would have been no poem but the world if we had remembered, those crimson petalsspilled among the stones, would have called it simply murder.
The sexual orchid that bloomed then sending so many disinterestedmen to their graves has left its memory to a race of foolsor heroes if silence is a virtue. The sea alonewith its multiplicity holds any hope. The stormhas proven abortive but we remain after the thoughts it rousedto re-cement our lives. It is the mindthe mind that must be cured short of death'sintervention, and the will becomes again a garden. The poemis complex and the place made in our lives for the poem.
Silence can be complex too, but you do not get far with silence.
Begin again. It is like Homer's catalogue of ships:it fills up the time. I speak in figures, well enough, the dressesyou wear are figures also, we could not meet otherwise. When I speakof flowers it is to recall that at one timewe were young. All women are not Helen, I know that,but have Helen in their hearts. My sweet, you have it also, thereforeI love you and could not love you otherwise. Imagine you sawa field made up of women all silver-white. What should you dobut love them? The storm bursts or fades! it is notthe end of the world. Love is something else, or so I thought it,a garden which expands, though I knew you as a woman and never thought otherwise,until the whole sea has been taken up and all its gardens.
It was the love of love, the love that swallows up all else, a grateful love,a love of nature, of people, of animals, a love engenderinggentleness and goodness that moved me and that I saw in you.
I should have known, though I did not, that the lily-of-the-valleyis a flower makes many ill who whiff it. We had our children,rivals in the general onslaught. I put them aside though I cared for well as any man could care for his children according to my lights.
You understand I had to meet you after the eventand have still to meet you. Love to which you too shall bowalong with me- a flower a weakest flowershall be our trust and not because we are too feebleto do otherwise but because at the height of my powerI risked what I had to do, therefore to prove that we love each otherwhile my very bones sweated that I could not cry to you in the act.
Of asphodel, that greeny flower, I come, my sweet, to sing to you!
My heart rouses thinking to bring you news of somethingthat concerns you and concerns many men. Look at what passes for the new.
You will not find it there but in despised poems. It is difficultto get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lackof what is found there. Hear me out for I too am concernedand every man who wants to die at peace in his bed besides.
