my love is unrequited, for these beautiful flowers hate me. why do you say that? senses. it deafens me, blinds me, drives me from my room and shoots me with poisoned arrows which sadden my heart and set my head aflame. don't you know the legend of this flower? tell me. first, i will tell you its meaning. the roots, resting on the water or buried the soil is the earth. the stalk shoots up, straight as the axis of the world, and on the top rest the starflowers with their six-headed petals. stars over the earth, how beautiful. where did you find that vision? how did you see it? where? in your eyes. it is an image of the world. buddha sits with the earth at his knees, brooding over it, watching it grow outwards and upwards, transforming itself into a heaven. this unhappy earth shall become a heaven. it is that the buddha awaits. yes, now i see it. and is it not the snow flowers start with six points like the hyacinth lily? yes, snow flowers are falling stars. and this snowdrop is a snow star, risen from the snow. but ceres, the largest, the most beautiful of the stars