The Room

1

What has hard fact become?
I heard a child calling
“Look, look at the room!”
The edge of sense is curling –

a liquid flows in things.
Vital spindrift colours
of chairs and carpet swing
familiar and careless –

I have drawn back the curtains
of time. Here all is trust.
The room is in a cadence
and my mind is at rest.

2

A liquid governs the room.
The furniture is not hard or soft.
The shapes of chairs, complete,
the wood’s own depth of colour,
and the many self-possessed colours
in the small books, the gramophone,
my slippers, and the chair-covers,
the room’s many definite things –
implicit shapes, still colours –
I see them and I feel them
flow quietly without stopping.
All this, to me, is grace.