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Showing posts from April 13, 2010

nothing gold can stay.

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Last Tuesday I picked up some gorgeous daffodils which were just about to open at my thesis advisor’s house. They opened over the next few days and filled the room with that ethereal jonquil smell—green, powdery, and very light. They looked positively luminous on our dining table, and I enjoyed every second of their presence in my home. Now, 6 days later, they look like this. I guess because I’m a literary type, I read this as a symbol, a reminder of the brevity of all beauty in our lives, and as a reminder to enjoy what we have while we have it. Fragrance functions as just such a reminder, a memento mori , for me every day. In its ever so brief lifespan, a fragrance is born, flowers, and decays , over a length of time comparable to the lifespan of a mayfly. Nothing Gold can Stay, by Robert Frost: Nature's first green is gold Her hardest hue to hold.  Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to gri