Aquarium

My little fish were dreamt On a thousand and one nights In Scheherazadian fable And rainbow splendor of color And they tell in chroma and chromatics Stories of prism and spectrum. They flash, they gleam effulgent In cinnabar and vermilion and ultramarine

%And in purple unimaginable maxima, In alizarin and cadmium and chrome And emerald and ivory and monochromatics of black, Spectral from time when life was young. So long a way have they come They sleep with open eyes In the shadowless waters Of the beginning -- ancient wisdom Painted in radiance on primal night For my delight.