Polarities

SOMETIMES she is like sherry, like the sun through a vessel of glass, Like light through an oriel window in a room of yellow wood; Sometimes she is the colour of lions, of sand in the fire of noon, Sometimes as bruised with shadows as the afternoon. Sometimes she moves like rivers, sometimes like trees; Or tranced and fixed like South Pole silences; Sometimes she is beauty, sometimes fury, sometimes neither, Sometimes nothing, drained of meaning, null as water. Sometimes, when she makes pea-soup or plays me Schumann, I love her one way; sometimes I love her another More disturbing way when she opens her mouth in the dark; Sometimes I like her with camellias, sometimes with a parsley-stalk, Sometimes I like her swimming in a mirror on the wall; Sometimes I don't like her at all.