If you ask me what my trade is, I will tell you:
I wander.
My care lies out there among the things felt —
I circle them in silence so as not to startle them,
I perfume myself absent as the lynx
in order to admire the caresses,
the fragrances,
the conquests,
the catastrophes,
or the indifferences.
All of them I lift up in flight
like flowers one must keep
unspoken among the lurking earth,
as though the word might wither them,
as though being before them
would strip them of being.
From Flowers in Minefields, p. 14