The Perfect Platonic Prison
The canal is the most perfect of mirrors
reflecting the purples and blues of the boats
and the greens and blacks and blues of the trees.
They all reach down in perfect symmetry.
There are shabby huts and black cats.
There are ferns and rhodedendrons.
Then the brown ducks put an end to it.
If there’s a perfect prison, this is it.
There are brilliant drooping plants in pots.
There are hanging gardens and cans and pots
hung down below themselves, hanging down.
Then the brown ducks swim past without a thought.
The brown ducks swim past and there’s an end of it.
Things were basking in the richness of yellow sun.
But that’s over. That’s all done with for now.
If there’s a perfect prison, this is it.
There were petals that were brown petals in bits.
There were brown petal bits drifting in shining glass
into the corrugated tunnel but that’s done.
Surrounded by the blacks and brilliant greens
at the far side of the corrugated tunnel
there’s a chapel of honeyed light just hanging.
That’s the thing. That makes everything just right.
If there’s a perfect prison, this is it.