XXX
This is his essence: the old fantoche
Hanging his shawl upon the wind,
Like something on the stage, puffed out,
His strutting studied through centuries.
At last, in spite of his manner, his eye
A-cock at the cross-piece on a pole
Supporting heavy cables, slung
Through Oxidia, banal suburb,
One-half of all its installments paid.
Dew-dapper clapper-traps, blazing
From crusty stacks above machines.
Ecce, Oxidia is the seed
Dropped out of this amber-ember pod,
Oxidia is the soot of fire,
Oxidia is Olympia.
~~
Wallace Stevens
from The Man with the Blue Guitar, 1937
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]
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