I UNPETALLED YOU
(Birkendene, Caldwell. Fabruary, 20th)
I unpetalled you, like a rose,
to see your soul,
and I didn't see it.
But everything around
—horizons of lands and of seas—,
everything, out to the infinite,
was filled with a fragrance,
enormous and alive.
Juan Ramón Jiménez
Translation by Stephen Mitchell