Masters, the mock orange is blooming in Syracuse without

       scent, having been bred by patient horticulturalists

To make this greater display at the expense of fragrance.

But I miss the jasmine of my back-country home.

Your language has no tenses, which is why your poems can

       never be translated whole into English;

Your minds are the minds of men who feel and imagine

       without time.

The serenity of the present, the repose of my eyes in the cool

       whiteness of sterile flowers.

Even now the headsman with his great curved blade and rank

       odor is stalking the byways for some of you.

When everything happens at once, no conflicts can occur.

Reality is an impasse. Tell me again

How the white heron rises from among the reeds and flies

       forever across the nacreous river at twilight

Toward the distant islands.