Maecenas:

Now Antony

Must leave her utterly.

 Enobarbus:

Never, he will not:

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale

Her infinite variety. Other women cloy

The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry

Where most she satisfies. . . .

   

Antony And Cleopatra Act 2, scene 2, 232–237

Besides Shakespeare when I look at roses past their peak I think of Borges and his views on death. His most often thought is about not doing something again or not viewing himself in a mirror. That poem is called Límites which I will place below and its version in English, Limits.

The rose you see here (and you will be able to spot a fresh bloom)  is Rosa ‘Souvenir du Docteur Jamain’. It is a 19^th century Hybrid Perpetual which means that now that its flowering is over I might get some blooms later in the season. But what is glorious about this rose (not all roses have this feature) is that if it doesn’t rain (and it has not) the drying petals will not fall off. The original deep red colour of its blooms darken to almost black. There is a beauty in this death which is not really death as the plant itself will keep growing vigorously.

On the other hand there is that 1994 novel by Gabriel García Márquez Del amor y otros demonios, ( Of Love and Other Demons) where a woman’s hair grows back on her skull when she is interred after death. I am not thinking of that particular novel when I look at my Docteur Jamain in my back lane. 

Límites – Jorge Luís Borges

De estas calles que ahondan el poniente,

una habrá (no sé cuál) que he recorrido

ya por última vez, indiferente

y sin adivinarlo, sometido

a quien prefija omnipotentes normas

y una secreta y rígida medida

a las sombras, los sueños y las formas

que destejen y tejen esta vida.

Si para todo hay término y hay tasa

y última vez y nunca más y olvido

¿Quién nos dirá de quién, en esta casa,

sin saberlo, nos hemos despedido?

Tras el cristal ya gris la noche cesa

y del alto de libros que una trunca

sombra dilata por la vaga mesa,

alguno habrá que no leeremos nunca.

Hay en el Sur más de un portón gastado

con sus jarrones de mampostería

y tunas, que a mi paso está vedado

como si fuera una litografía.

Para siempre cerraste alguna puerta

y hay un espejo que te aguarda en vano;

la encrucijada te parece abierta

y la vigila, cuadrifronte, Jano*.

Hay, entre todas tus memorias, una

que se ha perdido irreparablemente;

no te verán bajar a aquella fuente

ni el blanco sol ni la amarilla luna.

No volverá tu voz a lo que el persa

dijo en su lengua de aves y de rosas,

cuando al ocaso, ante la luz dispersa,

quieras decir inolvidables cosas.

¿Y el incesante Ródano y el lago,

todo ese ayer sobre el cual hoy me inclino?

Tan perdido estará como Cartago

que con fuego y con sal borró el latino*.

Creo en el alba oír un atareado

rumor de multitudes que se alejan;

son lo que me ha querido y olvidado;

espacio, tiempo y Borges ya me dejan.

Limits – Jorge Luís Borges

Of all the streets that blur in to the sunset,

There must be one (which, I am not sure)

That I by now have walked for the last time

Without guessing it, the pawn of that Someone

Who fixes in advance omnipotent laws,

Sets up a secret and unwavering scale

For all the shadows, dreams, and forms

Woven into the texture of this life.

If there is a limit to all things and a measure

And a last time and nothing more and forgetfulness,

Who will tell us to whom in this house

We without knowing it have said farewell?

Through the dawning window night withdraws

And among the stacked books which throw

Irregular shadows on the dim table,

There must be one which I will never read.

There is in the South more than one worn gate,

With its cement urns and planted cactus,

Which is already forbidden to my entry,

Inaccessible, as in a lithograph.

There is a door you have closed forever

And some mirror is expecting you in vain;

To you the crossroads seem wide open,

Yet watching you, four-faced, is a Janus

There is among all your memories one

Which has now been lost beyond recall.

You will not be seen going down to that fountain

Neither by white sun nor by yellow moon.

You will never recapture what the Persian

Said in his language woven with birds and roses,

When, in the sunset, before the light disperses,

You wish to give words to unforgettable things.

And the steadily flowing Rhone and the lake,

All that vast yesterday over which today I bend?

They will be as lost as Carthage,

Scourged by the Romans with fire and salt.

At dawn I seem to hear the turbulent

Murmur of crowds milling and fading away;

They are all I have been loved by, forgotten by;

Space, time, and Borges now are leaving me.