Looking At Tulips

Aware of all this mutability, I ask what does not change:
The longing of the heart to know is what I find myself saying.

One first learned it a long time ago and then it seemed simple to assuage,
But the world gets more complicated and the answers are never any easier.

I look at these colors you have set before me —deep
scarlets, water-flecked yellows of tulips:
My eye drinks in the intensity of each but still is unassuaged.

If I should live several lifetimes I still shall not have
exhausted the possibilities of even these flowers:
Why should I think of the world that it should be in any way simpler?