from "White Roses" in THE TENNIS COURT OATH by John Ashbery

"...But you will not listen, you are like the swan.
No stars are there,
No stripes,
But a blind man's cane poking, however clumsily, into the
inmost corners of the house.
Nothing can be harmed! Night and day are beginning again!
So put away the book,
The flowers you were keeping to give someone:
Only the white, tremendous foam of the street has any
importance,
The new white flowers that are beginning to shoot up about
now."

from John Ashbery COLLECTED POEMS 1956-1987. Library of America. 2008.