landscapes without horizons

Some very enjoyable hours are spent researching enclosed gardens nowadays. For one researcher it is directly connected to an imminent installation, so the aesthetic;  and for the other, it is connected more and more to the 360 degree view of the plot being worked by the gardener, so the practical. A glimpse into one of the cloistered green areas at Val de Bénédiction Chartreuse in Villeneuve les Avignon offers up the expected box framed parterre – a warm berceau – a  14 C  space lined by cloisters but now the 21 C view that visitors expect. This is the church cloister bounded by chapter room, sacristan’s cell, shaving room and the church housing the mausoleum of Pope Innocent VI. It may have been an area for cultivating herbs . . . . a  ’focal point’ – vase has been placed as part of the experience that is de rigueur now.

The feature look a a little out of place in the new setting but it’s a good reproduction of 17 C decorative finial from the entrance gate and posts. Pomegranates, melons and acanthus adorn the vase. This may be a copy of  the original by Franςois Des Royers, a local architect, sculptor and stone mason, who was invited to add similar touches. The monasatery grew richer, more influential and beautiful over the centuries until the Revolution.

Long corridors offer up a peaceful and serene atmosphere. Any decoration is subdued but appropriate. Following a carving up into lots of the library and works of art including frescoes and the bad damage to the building during the Revolution,  the Inspector of Historical Monuments, Prosper Mérimée started the process of repair.

The priest’s cells form a linear terrace on the right side of this cloister – Cemetery Cloister. The cells had a mezzanine sleeping area looking out onto a private walled garden, and across the Chemin des Chartreux to the Fort St – André,  high on the hill overlooking the new town, the Rhône and the old Avignon.

The individual garden – hortulus –  has a raised level to catch as much sun as possible. A majority of the herbal plants had been introduced by the Romans but also brought back from The Holy Land by Crusaders so sun and warmth were a prerequisite in their growth and cultivation.

The plan of another Certosa, Pavia, shows the uninterrupted rectilinear regulation of line and form. Inward looking and contemplative – nothing from the outside or larger world can interrupt. My thoughts on tending earth and growing plants are on the same level.

This was the area of the hortus catalogi, also part of the Cemetery Cloister, where plants were grown for food and healing. Grown in an ordered pattern, originally as a user friendly method of organisation,  with roots from ancient Muslim gardens.

All circulation was through covered cloister walkways – repetition – harmoniously connecting functional spaces – inward views – geometric planes of light and shade – unified  - humility and piety – prayers offered up to save the human race.

One necessary functional space was based round the water reservoir. The basin here built by Des Royers and covered later with an octagonal rotunda by Franque seems monumental and indicative of the power of the church . . . . so back firmly down to earth with Carol Ann Duffy:

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child’s name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer -
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre. Carol Ann Duffy  Prayer

Some other posts on the research:

http://juliafoggterrain.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/chronicling-the-day/

http://juliafoggterrain.wordpress.com/2013/02/24/quietude/

http://juliafoggterrain.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/land-of-the-saint-the-devil-and-the-monks/

http://juliafoggterrain.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/a-room-without-a-ceiling/

(refs: drawings from The Enclosed Garden Aben + de Wit; Captured Landscape K Baker)

ancienne et moderne – acte 11

And acte 11 of the double post. At the Collection Lambert in the  Hôtel de Caumont to see:’Oriental Mirages, Pomegranates and Prickly Pears. Mediterranean Comings and Goings’

“In the present day the Arab world allows itself to be seen by the rest of the world via satellite, internet and the Twitter generation, yet it used to be described to Westerners by writers and artists that carried out long and gruelling journeys that sometimes took months or even years”.

Mounted together – an antique cupboard containing  a small library of books by Ginsberg,  Bowles and others put together by Robert Rauschenberg alongside a video by David Claerbout. Enough said – inspirational balance.

Also inspirational are the sketchbooks from Matisse and Le Corbusier. The low afternoon light floods the galleries . . .

. . . all around the exotic mix of the old and the contemporary.

A staircase need never be just a staircase . . .

A classroom that most would want to play and to discover in . . .

. .  and then the exhibit/installation/artwork?? from the other side. I discover this is by Mona Hatoum, “Nature morte aux grenades”.

A final piece  - very clever – the air from the fan interacts with the ring encouraging a mesmerising dancing movement.

Thank you to the artists:

Adel Abdessemed, Kader Attia, François Augiéras, Francis Bacon, Miquel Barceló, Yto Barrada, J.-J. Benjamin-Constant, Charles Betout, Étienne Billet, Jean-Charles Blais, Félix Bonfils, A. Bonnichon, Paul Bowles, Alexandre Cabanel, Auguste Chabaud, David Claerbout, Georges Clairin, Robert Combas, Géo Condé, Charles Cordier, Pascal Coste, Louis-Amable Coulet, Edward-Gordon Craig, André Réda Dadoun, Marie-Hélène Dasté, Tacita Dean, Édouard Debat-Ponsan, Émilie Deckers, Eugène Delacroix, Jules Didier, Jason Dodge, Isabelle Eberhardt, Emir El Qiz, Joseph Eysséric, Spencer Finch, Claire Fontaine, Théodore Frère, Eugène Fromentin, Paul Armand Gette, Nan Goldin, Douglas Gordon, Louis-Amable Grapelet, Zaha Hadid, Mona Hatoum, J.-A.-D. Ingres, Zilvinas Kempinas, Bouchra Khalili, Idris Khan, Anselm Kiefer, Jules Laurens, Le Corbusier, Henri Lehmann, Simon-Bernard Lenoir, Hamid Maghraoui, Henri Matisse, Théodore Monod, Moataz Nasr, Carlo Naya, Shirin Neshat, Jean Noro, Jean Nouvel, Yan Pei-Ming, Régis Perray, Pierre et Gilles, Isidore Pils, Walid Raad, Robert Rauschenberg, Michal Rovner, Charles Sandison, Moussa Sarr, Julian Schnabel, Pascal Sébah, Andres Serrano, Waël Shawky, Joseph Sintes, Djamel Tatah, Cy Twombly, Lawrence Weiner

Check out an associated post here

I’ve lived beneath huge portals where marine
Suns coloured, with a myriad fires, the waves;
At eve majestic pillars made the scene
Resemble those of vast basaltic caves.

The breakers, rolling the reflected skies,
Mixed, in a solemn, enigmatic way,
The powerful symphonies they seem to play
With colours of the sunset in my eyes.

There did I live in a voluptuous calm
Where breezes, waves, and splendours roved as vagrants;
And naked slaves, impregnated with fragrance,

Would fan my forehead with their fronds of palm:
Their only charge was to increase the anguish
Of secret grief in which I loved to languish.  Roy Campbell, Former Life

Poems of Baudelaire (New York: Pantheon Books, 1952)

ancienne et moderne – acte 1

This is acte 1 of a double acte post.  At Le Musée Lapidaire where Medieval and Gallo-Roman sculptures of the Calvet Collection are housed, the experience is educational. The ecclesiastical building, a former Collège des Jésuites, sits on the main route into the historic centre of  Avignon. Visitors and locals stream passed to and from the stations probably unaware that a museum lies within. The building retains a confident aura although the use has changed into an environment for stone statues, friezes, funery urns and other ‘finds’ from earlier centuries. These are very beautiful in subject matter  - figures both human and animal – and in the craft of the execution.

The insect world and the botanic world are also treated with a sense of reverence as well as delight . . .

Pure compositions occur whether meant intentionally or just  in the accumulation of storage.

A short step across the street in Rue du Pourtail Bouquier, is another Jesuit building. Once a seminary, and then an officers’ hospital, and then a hospice, and now a hotel and restaurant with eye watering prices. Forgive the sarcasm . . . .

. .  the mature trees and the surrounding built facades are one.

As the sun swings round, a sense of theatricality and memory fills the courtyard. An art installation or is it merely items on their way somewhere? And old crafts, like the laying of pebbles, will never be the same again.

On to Rue Violette and the Collection Lambert . . .

J’ai longtemps habité sous de vastes portiques
Que les soleils marins teignaient de mille feux,
Et que leurs grands piliers, droits et majestueux,
Rendaient pareils, le soir, aux grottes basaltiques.

Les houles, en roulant les images des cieux,
Mêlaient d’une façon solennelle et mystique
Les tout-puissants accords de leur riche musique
Aux couleurs du couchant reflété par mes yeux.

C’est là que j’ai vécu dans les voluptés calmes,
Au milieu de l’azur, des vagues, des splendeurs
Et des esclaves nus, tout imprégnés d’odeurs,

Qui me rafraîchissaient le front avec des palmes,
Et dont l’unique soin était d’approfondir
Le secret douloureux qui me faisait languir.  Charles Baudelaire  La Vie Antérieure

quietude

Still frames are revealed in winter – there’s a clarity which the summer light diffuses – projections, simple statements, unexpected compositions. More wonderment on the exterior wall of Saint-Martin, the main church in San-Rémy-de –Provence,  than within the dark interior – the organ is famous not only for for the sound it produces but also its ‘chest’.

Another religious building to the south of town has a cloistered garden. Saint Paule de Mausole is still a psychiatric hospital  - van Gogh was treated there before returning to the north and ending his life. His output during that year was prolific mainly focused on  the gardens and the countryside of Les Alpilles. Enclosed gardens are a big draw. This cloistered space was shut to visitors but, a small door was left enticingly open, so the opportunity to breathe in a little of the peaceful atmosphere was quickly taken!

Iris unguicularis just coming into flower . . . van Gogh painted the many of forms of iris flowering here.

Purity in another form – of stone and architecture – just close by at the ancient site of the Roman city. The mausoleum of the Julii and the triumphal arch stand intact. The carved dedication: SEX · M · L · IVLIEI · C · F · PARENTIBVS · SVEIS
Sextius, Marcus and Lucius Julius, sons of Gaius, to their forebears.

Corinthian columns support the  chapel with a conical roof carved in a fish scale pattern. Gorgons, quadrifons, putti and cupids are also included in the carvings of mythical and legendary scenes of battle between the Greeks and their enemies – Amazons + Trojans. Acanthus foliage, the plant of the Roman mortuary, included too as a sign of eternal rebirth. The image below shows the scale.

The triumphal arch, the Northern gate, to the city of Glanum is carved with figures of Gaullish prisoners showing the power of Rome and the threat of what might happen if . . . .

. . high above Eygalières, stand the ruins of the château and the Chapelle des Pénitents. Pine trees surround the 17C buildings which dominate the olive and vine filled countryside lining the path of the Durance river.

A peaceful Saturday with a little activity for those who play Pétanque.

  “When I opened my eyes I saw nothing but the pool of nocturnal sky, for I was lying on my back with out-stretched arms, face to face with that hatchery of stars. Only half awake, still unaware that those depths were sky, having no roof between those depths and me, no branches to screen them, no root to cling to, I was seized with vertigo and felt myself as if flung forth and plunging downward like a diver.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand, and Stars

In the crazed mirror of my eye
the world is flawed irrevocably,
I walk without the grace of sight,
who made my whole world visually.

What giant hand above my head
shattered the mirror of the sky,
and left me with a blinded face;
dependent on an inner eye
to recreate the universe,
to force into the face of light
a world so faceted and bright,

refracting light, reflecting love,
out of an eye so picked with pain,
that none can see it, none can build
such private glasshouse in the brain. Dorothy Hewett  The Glass-House

à la gare

Was glad to get a chance to see this station again. Avignon TGV is a 10 minute bus ride from the centre of town – just 3 euro for a return ticket – and it’s worth a visit even if train travel is not for you. The article by Jonathan Glancey gives a good insight into the design and construction of the 3 new build stations – Avignon, Valence and Aix en Provence – on the TGV-Med Service swooping down to Marseilles. Of course, stations are for travellers so need to function in terms of organization – visit the ladies and see how efficiently Madame manages it – as well as clarity of information and circulation.On a busy morning in early January. there was plenty of room, both standing and seating, for travellers after the holiday break and those travelling for business.

Some empty space offers the opportunity to appreciate the surfaces both horizontal and vertical. Attractive and practical – there’s plenty of natural light flooding through the curved apertures . . . .

. . .  the landscape that greets the traveller is also sleek, organised, stylish and seamless. Lines of poplars are expertly topped to give a graphic visual quality interfaced with slower growing evergreen cypress.

The main view from the station building to the route to the town shows the large classical gates forming a definition to the contemporary water course axis. The canals had just had their winter clean.

In summer, the water feature looks like this . . . . forms of typha and lilies bridge the decorative look created by large vases of Nerium oleanders.

Some areas are more natural like this view to the east. The balance is just right.

The cathedral ceiling emphasises the linear feel. And the current photography exhibition is cleverly hung on the curved walls on the eye line of those using the stairs, elevators and first floor landing which access the platforms.

On the first floor, travellers can wait in the warm and the dry for their  trains. Admittedly, the timber deck type platform surface was covered in frost. Very slippery – the only problem that I experienced.

No misdirections in reference to the choice of poem – all plain sailing and very smooth, thank you SNCF (unlike recent trips on Eurostar!).

May they stumble, stage by stage
On an endless Pilgrimage
Dawn and dusk, mile after mile
At each and every step a stile
At each and every step withal
May they catch their feet and fall
At each and every fall they take
May a bone within them break
And may the bone that breaks within
Not be, for variations sake
Now rib, now thigh, now arm, now shin
but always, without fail, the NECK  Robert Graves  The Travellers’ Curse after Misdirection

landscapes and light in the living rooms

I like spaces in galleries and museums that feel like living rooms – relaxing into an easy chair, picking up a magazine, book or sheet of notes relating to the exhibits brings a whole new dimension to the experience. In the Fondation Calvet, the 20 C collection is hung in the Victor Martin room with  Vlaminck, Soutine, Chabaud well represented together with a quite lovely Bonnard ’Jour d’hiver’. Crisp morning light floods the rooms, bouncing off glass and perspex surfaces to multiply shapes and colours in other dimensions. The only three dimensional form is a Masque Iba from Nigeria with a dramatic headdress or maybe just a skilful coiffure . . .

. . the sculpture gallery with double aspect and marble floor is 18C. It provides an environment for the neo-classical figures with a fragile quality. Touch it or make too loud a noise and it’ll shatter. A graceful staircase carries the visitor to the first floor of this once privately owned mansion in Rue Joseph Vernet in Avignon. The gallery and sumptuously grand 19C salon house an eclectic mix of paintings and sculptures . . . .

. . . views down to the courtyard show the usual, simple and correct contained landscape. Fussiness in planting is not required with such stylish architecture. So the role of the garden is for tree planting to provide shade under which to relax in the hot Provence summer sun and  . . .  mentioned by Stendhal as ” large trees of the garden”  in his Memories of a Tourist.

To the north, the humble arched portal of a side access is dwarfed now by more recent bâtiments.

The foundation contains objects, paintings, tapestries, faïence, bronzes, books, coins and decorative metalwork accumulated by 2 enlightened benefactors, Esprit Calvet and Marcel Puech. Calvet also collected ancient Egyptian artefacts. The solemnity of the aura surrounding the display of these was broken by a party of young school children doing a lot of colouring in on fact sheets. Giggles, some tears and general hubbub of teaching and maintaining order passed around the cased mummies until suddenly, just before midday, the little people made a fast exit leaving a sense of calm to re-establish once again.

Small alabaster urns have their own presence set neatly within recesses as do the monumental vases in the entrance.

The winter sun is low and hardly touches the ground plane of the calade pebbles from the Rhone bed. Laid as a decorative carpet using only stones with brown tones.

How the light invades the Romantic room where the painting that was the talk of the 1850 salon is hung.

It sounded as if the Streets were running

And then – the Streets stood still –

Eclipse – was all we could see at the Window

And Awe – was all we could feel.

By and by – the boldest stole out of his Covert

To see if Time was there –

Nature was in an Opal Apron,

Mixing fresher Air.    Emily Dickinson

vertical garden at les halles

Place Pie is one of Avignon’s main squares bordered by churches, many bars and restaurants, shops and the covered market, Les Halles. The market is on the ground floor of a 5 level parking garage which forms a portion of the north facing side. This facade has a most decorative finish.

Running through the slanted 3 dimensional swirls of planted crocks, resembling cliff side terrain, runs 20 m of Iris japonica. Inside, early morning, there’s an opportunity to delve into more sumptuous delights also beautifully and skilfully laid out. The French are masters at presentation. Regular and perfectly formed shapes . . . .

. . . and the knobbly and irregular forms of organic produce.

Poor picture I’m afraid of the display of hats above the boulangerie stall.

Fresh leaves from the countryside and hams and salamis from Italy . . .

. . the spice stall smells as good as it looks – full of eastern promise with cones of colourful,  dry and grainy powdery textures – great contrast to slippery shells on the coquillages stall.

To finish the meal, fruits confits and calissons from down the road in Aix en Provence.

Back outside, th dry seed heads float in front of the high roof. It’s a green tone landscape in early January . . .

. . . but three hundred different species are planted on the 600 sq.m. surface. The image below shows the newly planted vertical garden. The wide expanse offered up an opportunity for Patrick Blanc to flex his artistic muscles and create a stunning horticultural canvas. Surprisingly dwarf conifers are included in the palette along with more usual suspects – cistus, helianthemum, salvia, dianthus and cytisus – now meshed together as the small leaved micraflora of algae flourished along with mosses and ferns.

Two alcoves on either side conjure up the effect of a rocky labyrinth as against a piece of flat tapestry style planting.

When over the flowery, sharp pasture’s
edge, unseen, the salt ocean

lifts its form-chicory and daisies
tied, released, seem hardly flowers alone

but color and the movement-or the shape
perhaps-of restlessness, whereas

the sea is circled and sways
peacefully upon its plantlike stem.    William Carlos Williams  Flowers By The Sea

street of the water wheels

The street of the water wheels also called street of the dyers (teinturiers) runs from the ramparts into the old town of Avignon. Plane trees cast shade in summer over a street where restaurants and many small fringe theatres are situated – especially lively and humming at festival time but quiet on a Sunday afternoon in early January. Some locals were making a direct path to one venue where a performance of Provencal music was scheduled and I’m sorry now that I didn’t accept the friendly invitation to stay and listen. Dommage. River stones from the Durance form the road surface and pieces of carved stone prevent parking in some places and also offer places to perch.Annoyingly I can’t find any information on the provenance of the carvings . . . .

. . . the canalised water runs at street level and is now taken from the Sorgue providing pure Vaucluse canal water instead of the original source, the muddier River Durance. The water had to be pure for the clarity of colours used in the silk and calico weaving that made the Provençal fabric so famous.

Strong, proud architecture forms a back cloth to the canal including the entrance to the Chapelle des Penitents Gris . . . . . services are still held here . . . . there is one next Sunday January 13th. Just 4 of the water wheels remain from the 23 that pumped up the flow to run the mills between the 14th and 19th C. The washing and the rinsing of fabric required a constant replenishing water supply – the energy of the contained  element must have been something to witness and to work with.

A beautiful magnolia stretches out from one of many old enclosed gardens that delineate the division of the wealthier facades on the canal side to the more humble terraced habitations and shops on the street side. Two important buildings mark each end of the street . . .

. . the church of the convent where Petrach’s love Laura lies and by the ramparts, Maison du IV Chiffre, with the carved chiffres between the first floor windows. Gargoyles lean from the curved corner turrets to disgorge water on those below.

A street that appears peaceful, calm, quite soft and  limpid – now.Centuries ago, a theatre of  moving, revolving power manipulated by man.

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don’t believe I’m wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can’t use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They’ve got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I’ll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
‘Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone. Maya  Angelou  Alone

à l’abbaye

A few of the visitors to this blog know that I am house hunting – an occupation that, on reflection, seems to have taken up a good part of my life. Being one of those unfortunates who, whenever they travel and visit new places, decide that this is ‘it’ finally. Whether Africa, the Far East, South or North America or Europe, my initial reaction is to immediately decide to decamp and make a new home as fast as possible (my problem is that I feel a complete and uncomfortable stranger in my homeland).  So, quickly back to the point, I thought to spend time in the Luberon (maybe this would be ‘it’), an area that on paper ticked the boxes, and naturally, see Menerbes. Some friends were quite scathing about this town that benefited? from the Peter Mayle experience and I discovered that my friends have good judgement. Too much gentrification and tweeness mixed up in one decorators pot for my liking ( purposefully no photos here). Also sad to see that someone decided black limestone should be spread over all flat surfaces giving a totally urban effect and with little differentiation to road and pavement. Town councillors of Menerbes need to visit St Remy -de- Provence and Avignon to note good use of materials and craftsmanship. We are great meddlers and consequently, destroyers. But, turning a negative into a positive, just close by the town on the opposite side of the valley sits the Abbaye de Saint Hilaire – the history and narrative of this building and surroundings –  brought back my faith in mankind.

Ancient man inhabited this wooded land area of cork oaks and now pines  - it’s easy to see why – perfect hidden but confident in the outlook with natural water source and gently sloping land suitable for cultivation – so perfect example of the prospect and refuge theory. The Romans built the Via Domitia close by and there is documented reference to a Carmelite convent built on the site in 13C. Cistercian monks constructed, farmed, and prayed here in the footprint of this building in 15C. A fresco in the side chapel, finely executed stairs and the courtyards remain from this time as do the boulins – holes for the roosting birds – in the dovecote part of the courtyard walls. The monks would also have grown olives, vines and had a supply of fish on hand.

In the mid 20C, the abbaye was bought by a couple who faithfully restored it to the original 13C layout and construction. Inside the walls, the privy garden retains the original character even if empty of monks in habits doing what they had to do . . . .

. . . there’s an element of the ‘clipped balls’a la Vezian but that’s to be expected. The spaces are still simple and so easy to absorb, comprehend and enjoy and perhaps the restfulness will melt away in this landscape ?

Again and again, however we know the landscape of love
and the little churchyard there, with its sorrowing names,
and the frighteningly silent abyss into which the others
fall: again and again the two of us walk out together
under the ancient trees, lie down again and again
among the flowers, face to face with the sky. Rainer Maria Rilke

fin de l’annee

Many of the last hours of the end of the year were spent wandering around Avignon – discovering, admiring, absorbing – and doing some stocktaking. Place Saint Pierre, tucked behind the church, forms the smallest of cross axes and has quickly become a necessary cut through.  Strange window decoration close by . .  macabre

. . . the bell tower by Place des Carmes is topped with intricate metalwork – fine contrast to the simple architecture and stonework.

Golden rays surround cherubs carefully transporting the head of John the Baptist to some holy place on the facade of the Baroque Chapel of the Pénitents Noirs de la Miséricorde. More macabre goings on . . . . my last post showed images of the public space by the Place du Palais . . .

. . . the smallest family member got to grips quickly with the spacious areas here on his way up to the playgrounds in the Rocher des Doms and, hopefully, banked the architecture of  the Conservatory  ( beautiful frontage and originally the Papal Mint) for future reference.

What we thought were scarecrows in the small Papal vineyard turn out to be installations by local art students – decorative and functional. The magnificent supports to the old pine have the same qualities to my mind.  Returning down to Place de l’Horloge, the Xmas market is still in full swing around the Carousel. The owner is quite grumpy but, all those who try it out and also their proud relations who applaud, smile and make up for his poor attitude. The interior of the roof has salacious scenes from classical myths – a good bit of nudity to warm up minds at this cold end of year – but a little incongruous.

Final sunset to herald a New Year – looks promising if only for the short term.

Again and again, however we know the landscape of love
and the little churchyard there, with its sorrowing names,
and the frighteningly silent abyss into which the others
fall: again and again the two of us walk out together
under the ancient trees, lie down again and again
among the flowers, face to face with the sky. Rainer Maria Rilke