AN ACROBAT, A VIOLINIST, AND A CHAMBERMAID CELEBRATE

GEOMETRY of souls. Dispute the roundness of gesturing flesh; Angles, and oblongs, and squares Slip with astounding precision Into the throes of lifted elbows; Into the searching perpendicular Of fingers rising to more than ten; Into the salient straightness of lips; Into the rock-like protest of knees. The flesh of human beings Is a beginner’s-lesson in mathematics. The pliant stupidity of flesh Mentions the bungling effort Of a novice to understand The concealed mathematics of the soul. Men will tell you that an arm Rising to the sky Indicates strident emotion; Reveals a scream of authority; Expresses the longing of a red engine Known as the heart; Rises like a flag-pole From which the mind signals. Men will fail to tell you That an arm rising to the sky Takes a straight line of the soul And strives to comprehend it; That the arm is a solid tunnel For a significance that shoots beyond it. The squares, and angles, and oblongs of the soul, The commencing lines of the soul Are pestered by a debris of words. Men shovel away the words: Falteringly in youth; Tamely and pompously in middle age; Vigorously in old age. Death takes the last shovel-full away: Death is accommodating. Nothing is wise except outline. The content held by outline Is a slave in the mass. Men with few outlines in their minds Try to give the outlines dignity By moulding them into towers two inches high, In which they sit in lonely, talkative importance. Men with many outlines Break them into more, and thus Playing, come with quickened breath To hints of spiritual contours. Seek only the decoration; Avoid the embryonic yelping Of argument, and scan your patterns For angles, oblongs, and squares of the soul. I overheard this concentrated prelude While listening to an acrobat, a violinist, and a chamber-maid Celebrate the removal of their flesh. While playing, the violinist’s upper arm Bisected the middle of the acrobat’s head As the latter knelt to hear, And the chamber-maid Stretched straight on the floor, with her forehead Touching the tips of the violinist’s feet. Motion knelt to receive The counselling touch of sound, And vigour, in a searching line, Reclined at the feet of sound, Buying a liquid release. Angles of arms and straight line of bodies Made a decoration. The violinist’s music Fell upon this decoration; Erased the vague embellishment of flesh; And came to angles, squares, and oblongs Of the soul.