And Yet the Ancients Thought that the Fruit Of Those Floral Nymphs When Made into Wine Was Bound to Bring on Death-like Forgetting

 

“Once the flowers are pollinated, the growing fruit

is pulled back and down under water for maturation.”

 

And what would the capitals of our temple columns be,
those emblems of the sacred tree,
without the forms of water lilies?

 

Those bemusing fragrant water lilies

by the bridge that still remains closed

clearly like the morning sunlight most,

rushing up to open early with the dawn,

 

on having garnered so much yearning

from the depths of night-time dark.

O those diamond-like Nymphaea,

Nymphaea odorata, so sharp and bright

 

and knowing how to coat and perfume

the gentlest of the light they had learned

to love with their scent and yielding white

 

before they turn into candles folded tight

for the night, even ahead of evening dusk,

and thus they float on water smooth and still.