“Now it lies free of cares in the open roses.” (Rilke)

New Dawn, unnamed pink moss, Dark Lady, nearly wild, Zephirine Drouhin, Ghislaine de Feligonde, Madame Alfred Carriere,

the Lady of Shalott, the Lark Ascending, an anonymous apricot climber on the garden gate.

And aren’t they all doing the same: only containing themselves,
if to contain oneself means: to transform the world outside
and wind and rain and patience of spring
and guilt and restlessness and disguised fate
and darkness of earth at evening
all the way to the errancy, flight, and coming on of clouds
all the way to the vague influence of the distant stars
into a handful of inwardness.

Now it lies free of cares in the open roses.
             –Rilke, from “Bowl of Roses”, trans. Galway Kinnell & Hannah Liebmann