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Burnt Norton I · Line 17 ·a bowl of rose-leaves
A bowl of dried rose petals — pot-pourri — is a small domestic image of the past preserved: fragrance kept after the flower has died. To stir its dust is to disturb memory to no clear end, and the speaker admits he does not know why he does it. Dust and ash become recurring figures of what remains of time, most starkly in Little Gidding II.