the red and the black

he said,

The tulip has got one scar on its heart, and the whole world knows it.
I have a hundred scars, and no-one is aware of them.

to which she replied, admonishing him:

you are the heedless tulip, o slave
with a black heart, a short life, and yet laughing...

thoughts, like silver images, like silver words, flickered between them. the soul's images glassily exposed, fading to silverpoint.

this silverwhite space where you say nothing; you place a silver coin in my palm to buy my silence.

wszedzie bylo nigdzie i nigdzie, wszedzie/ Litery ksiag srebrnialy, chwialy sie i nikly.

and so the tulip, to this day, lives in the open expanses, in the wilderness, his heart red and black for the memory of her.