"It is easy to love the beginning of things. It is easy to love them in bloom, when their colors are bursting. Yet how hard to love the end of things — to love their inevitable decay. I sit back and laugh, 'ama nilikosea? I should have paid more attention, or paid for a vacation'... but it has happened so many times that it becomes comical, as blossoms wither and drift once again toward the dark earth, towards The Giza."