Epitaph for an Aroma Poem by Silvina Ocampo

When the dew descended yesterday,
amid future stamens and corollas,
I perished in a garden that presented
shadows in the shapes of trees, and water.
Two ribbons bound me, here they are:
longer than my petals they endured,
pale, like the ribbons of the dead.
The same implicit partnership of flowers,
the similar hands, the care,
the season and the blood of evening,
will not be able to repeat exactly
the dark tunnels of my aroma:
infinite will be in memory
the intricate paths of the perfume;
infinite, too, the deceptive
reappearance of every moment.
And though the days may want to bring them back,
and though many circumstances join together- -
repetition of phrases or of people,
the same inclination of a head- -
neither does that person anymore exist
for whom I was in secret destined.