A Little Adam in a Sphere of Joy

Good times at Chan Chan, complete
With figurines serving beer.
Thomas Traherne loved God's world

So much it carried him off
By smallpox in his thirties.
Are there reasons why the best

Art is found in tombs or trash?
I'm afraid I won't like them.
Once, when I was half aware

Of the darkness outside me,
I dreamed of those figurines
Celebrating good times gone

In the silence of the house
Of dust they shared with poems and songs
And prayers of ecstatic praise.

A light brightened the corner
Where I was, but I was not
Bright enough to escape it.