Citations:saxifrage


 * 1977 &mdash; A naked goddess takes two jugs containing who knows what juices kept cool for the thirsty (all around there are the yellow dunes of a sun-baked desert), and empties them to water the pebbled shore; and at that instant a growth of saxifrage springs up in the midst of the desert, and among the succulent leaves a blackbird sings; life is the waste of material thrown away, the sea’s cauldron merely repeats what happens within constellations that for billions of years go on pounding atoms in the mortars of their explosions, obvious here even in the milk-colored sky. &mdash; Italo Calvino, The Castle of Crossed Destinies, Part 2, Chapter 2, 1969. Translated from Italian by William Weaver.