Esthetic Ricochet
A room with gilded sliding screens is flown
Through by a swallow. It swoops in and out
So swiftly that the moment makes a throne
Of thrill and beauty. It is like a shout
From Christ or Buddha, utter and so brief
That brevity becomes the beauty, or
A part of it. The beauty is a leaf
Of autumn blown to death inside the door
And then away forever. Black and white
The shape that flashes past the precious gold
Brings good and bad entailing heaven, slight
But there. This is perfection manifold.
.. Forget the Anglo Saxon mead hall gloom.
….Reflect upon that gold Kyoto room.
~ Phillip Whidden