We have come together (from the north, from the south, from Susan’s farm, from Louis’s house of business) to make one thing, not enduring—for, what endures?—but seen by many eyes simultaneously. There is a red carnation in that vase. A single flower as we sat here waiting, but now a seven-sided flower, many-petalled, red, puce, purple-shaded, stiff with silver-tinted leaves—a whole flower to which every eye brings its own contribution.’
