No ideas but in things.
—William Carlos Williams
No ideas there either.
—John Ashbery
It’s a Chinese porcelain bowl
alone on a small table
near the big French doors
at the end of a long narrow room.
The bowl reminds me of my mother
because it belonged to her
back when she was alive.
And, later in my life,
before I die,
something else will remind me
of the Chinese bowl and so on.
The room has an echo
because it’s empty except for the bowl,
a blue yoga mat,
a fairly huge black piano,
plus a lamp whose base is a monkey
wearing a turban
and looking askance at the whole scene.
But the Chinese bowl
is the thing here and now,
with its hand-painted pictures
of flowers and small birds—
a rooster with a pointy comb,
another with a very long tail
(I had to bend down to look)
all in green, red, white, and even pink.