"Garden"
ink on cotton sheet, 72" X 96", 1990

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Text included in this painting

There is a poem by the Spanish poet Antonio Machado in the upper left hand corner of the painting:

The wind, one brilliant day, called to my
soul with an aroma of jasmine.

"In return for this jasmine,
I'd like all the odor of your roses."

"I have no roses, I have no flowers
left now in my garden. All are dead."

"Then I'll take the waters of the fountain
and the yellow leaves and dried-up petals."

The wind left. I wept.
I said to my soul:
"what have you done with the garden entrusted to you?"

translated from the spanish by Robert Bly, in his anthology of Machado's poetry, "Times Alone."

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