The Beautiful

Into perplexity: as an itch chased round an oxter or early man in the cave mouth watching rain-drifts pour from beyond his understanding. Whether to admire the mere sensation, enough, or hold out for sweeter ornament, vessels of wonder born with that ur-charm of symmetry; lovely ones we ache to prize and praise, climb into and become because they try our day-by-day significance: some of us ugly and most of us plain, walked past in the drowned streets: pearls of paste, salted butter, secondary colors. They drift unapproached, gazed never-selves, blunt paragons of genetic industry. We desire them but cannot want such order. We stand, mouths open, and cannot help stammering our secrets, nailed to water.