Blue Hydrangea

Like in old cans of paint the last green hue,

these leaves are sere and rough and dull-complected

behind the blossom clusters in which blue

is not so much displayed as it's reflected;


They do reflect it imprecise and teary,

as though they'd rather have it go away,

and just like faded, once blue stationery,

they're tinged with yellow, violet and gray;


As in an often laundered children's smock,

cast off, its usefulness now all but over,

one senses running down a small life's clock.


Yet suddenly the blue revives, it seems,

and in among these clusters one discovers

a tender blue rejoicing in the green.

English translation by Bernhard Frank of Ranier Maria Rilke's poem