Invitation To Crystal-Gazing Poem by Ananta Madhavan

Take up a cut-glass poem
And hold it to the lamp,
That you might see
Radiant opacity
And shafted, steel-blue veins of light.


Turn, turn it gently on poised web-fingers
Like some slow machinery,
That you might mark
The muted interval of motion,
The pulse of new-bound time.


This should be all, unless
Within your own cross-mirrored halls
Other crystal broods are spawned.
Then let your hand withdraw,
That the smithereens of ornament may free
The between-space which it artfully confined.