The vase where this verbena is dying <br />was cracked by a blow from a fan. <br />It must have barely brushed it, <br />for it made no sound. <br /> <br />But the slight wound, <br />biting into the crystal day by day, <br />surely, invisibly crept <br />slowly all around it. <br /> <br />The clear water leaked out drop by drop. <br />The flowers' sap was exhausted. <br />Still no one suspected anything. <br />Don't touch! It's broken. <br /> <br />Thus often does the hand we love, <br />barely touching the heart, wound it. <br />Then the heart cracks by itself <br />and the flower of its love dies. <br /> <br />Still intact in the eyes of the world, <br />it feels its wound, narrow and deep, <br />grow and softly cry. <br />It's broken. Don't touch!<br /><br />Rene Francois Armand Prudhomme<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/broken-vase/
