After arising I miss the glint
of new sun in the oculus as
canvas cover emplaced and
removed ingeniously
and the little metal loop
and indeed every engineering
feat; I miss everything even:
that new sun, the cone of perfumed
oils melting on the crown
of a head; melting down,
the equally conditioning sea breezes,
the Nile, the beards and
barbarism, the tender kisses
and comically small feet, the
steady hand, the quivering one,
the unacceptance of abashédness,
Corinth, the metals that were white
hot in crucibles, the contraposto youths,
the glut of courses, the domesticated
feral cats, the eye blackening and lead
on the palms; cheeks; back of the neck,
the mounds of cadmium, the censers
of sandalwood and labdanum,
the sandstone; painted marble and
basalt statuary and large blocks
and the incomprehensible forces
at work for their creation, the Pantheon,
the sea; the distant sea and those
beyond the distant sea in Asia
(but not having known about that yet),
the startlingly advanced notions
of sexuality, the polished silver
sphere, the knowing or not knowing
of the equinox and subsequent
development of time telling devices, the
discovery of naturally-occurring bronze
on an island, the great Lighthouse,
the shooting—for sport—of slaves with a bow,
the precariously perched plinths and the
science divining their production,
the plebeian Succesio to Mon Emonda
and the Alepnstone, the Journeymen
Protectors, the development of algebra;
usury; W; optics; and the economy of want,
the worship of the Sun, and that no one
foresaw this further development
and then the downfall of all cultures
and then even further development.
