Empty, flicked by a fingernail, the bowl
Rings with the charm of vacancy. A girth
Of pure abstraction binds your world: a whole,
Void of anxiety and fond recall,
That stands free of the earth.
Revellers in blue glaze, your endless day
Persuades you there is ground for careless mirth
That does not cloy. Nothing you do or say
Has death in it, as if your primal clay
Were not derived from earth.
The matter of your converse? Nothing said.
What profits you, what is your life there worth?
You smile. (Olympian… Mandarin…) The dead,
Even, could not be more disinterested
Or less ruled by the earth.
On the calm surface of the pool appears,
Turned on its head, the world that gave you birth,
Denied you growth. And our world is to yours
What you are to the pool, whose rippling clears
Inconsequence from earth.
There you look on, and we glimpse paradise:
A dream of beauty and a form of dearth.
One touch of pain, unmimed, might turn to vice
Your virtues. Beauty is gloss. Like constant ice,
Polar, yet of the earth.