And these the orange-trees, in blossom--no need to tell with this weight of perfume in the air. If it were not so dark in this shed one could better see the white. It is that very perfume has drawn the darkness down among the leaves. Do I speak clearly enough? It is this darkness reveals that which darkness alone loosens and sets spinning on waxen wings-- not the touch of a finger-tip, not the motion of a sigh. A too heavy sweetness proves its own caretaker. And here are the orchids! Never having seen such gaiety I will read these flowers for you: This is an odd January, died--in Villon's time. Snow, this is and this the stain of a violet grew in that place the spring that foresaw its own doom. And this, a certain July from Iceland: a young woman of that place breathed it toward the south. It took root there. The colour ran true but the plant is small. This falling spray of snowflakes is a handful of dead Februarys prayed into flower by Rafael Arevalo Martinez of Guatemala. Here's that old friend who went by my side so many years: this full, fragile head of veined lavender. Oh that April that we first went with our stiff lusts leaving the city behind, out to the green hill-- May, they said she was. A hand for all of us: this branch of blue butterflies tied to this stem. June is a yellow cup I'll not name; August the over-heavy one. And here are-- russet and shiny, all but March. And March? Ah, March-- Flowers are a tiresome pastime. One has a wish to shake them from their pots root and stern, for the sun to gnaw. Walk out again into the cold and saunter home to the fire. This day has blossomed long enough. I have wiped out the red night and lit a blaze instead which will at least warm our hands and stir up the talk. I think we have kept fair time. Time is a green orchid. APRIL If you had come away with me into another state we had been quiet together. But there the sun coming up out of the nothing beyond the lake was too low in the sky, there was too great a pushing against him, too much of sumac buds, pink in the head with the clear gum upon them, too many opening hearts of lilac leaves, too many, too many swollen limp poplar tassels on the bare branches! It was too strong in the air. I had no rest against that springtime! The pounding of the hoofs on the raw sods stayed with me half through the night. I awoke smiling but tired. A GOODNIGHT