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The Carnation:
Accept the challenge things offer to language. For instance these carnations
defy language. I won’t give up until I have put together a few words that
will make anyone reading or hearing them say: this has to do with something
like a carnation.
Is that poetry? I have no idea, and it scarcely matters.
For me it is a need, a commitment, a rage, a matter of self-respect and
that’s all there is to it….
2
Contrast it to calm, rounded flowers: arum,
lilies, camellias, tuberoses. No that it is crazy, but it is violent (though
well compacted, put together within reasonable limits)
3
At stem-tip, the
luxurious marvels of its linen come unbuttoned from a toggle, unbudded from
a supple node of leaves.
Carnations, those marvelous rags.
How clean they
are. 4 Breathing them in, you feel a pleasure whose other side would be a
sneeze.
Seeing them, the pleasure you feel at the sight of the underpants,
with fine cut lace, of a young girl who cares for her linens |