Number 10

I don't know what the nightingale told the bud, for its heart is so full of blood and its face so troubled. Perhaps the secret it shared with the morning breeze has been laid bare, revealed one by one across its face. You would think a fire had caught in the thorns, so many are the flowers that have burst from the rosebush. Only in the cupped ring of the tulip will you find the pearls that the eye of the cloud has strung. Though the narcissus is the mischief of the garden, I am glad that in the end the mischief has fallen asleep. On the tip of the stem the breeze laid open every small secret the rose had hidden in its heart. The narcissus showed two heads on a single stalk; bless it, how lovely, both single and paired at once.