Lot's Wife by Anthony Hecht
How simple the pleasures of those childhood days, Simple but filled with exquisite satisfactions. The iridescent labyrinth of the spider, Its tethered tensor nest of polygons Puffed by the breeze to a little bellying sail -- Merely observing this gave infinite pleasure. The sound of rain. The gentle graphite veil Of rain that makes of the world a steel engraving, Full of soft fadings and faint distances. The self-congratulations of a fly, Rubbing its hands. The brown bicameral brain Of a walnut. The smell of wax. The feel Of sugar to the tongue: a delicious sand. One understands immediately how Proust Might cherish all such postage-stamp details. Who can resist the charms of retrospection?
|