Glazed Clay
Two mighty rivers’ ceaseless flow
beneath a high and cloudless sky;
to either side the ochre glow
of arid countries rolling by;
and here and there a golden maze,
the buildings’ cubes, the cities’ grid:
this jar with blue and brownish glaze
from Babylon still mirrors it.
Christina Egan © 2016
Mesopotamian jar (9th to 7th c. BC) . Photograph: © The Trustees of the British Museum.
The city and country of ‘Babylon’ were under Assyrian rule at the time the little jar was made, but I just used the name as the most familiar for all the civilisations of Mesopotamia.
For a German poem about Babylon with the Euphrates and the Hanging Gardens, see Die Hängenden Gärten.
The perfect elegance of this tiny everyday object is an example for the simple beauty I call for in Fewer Things, where you can also see a red Roman bowl.
Christina Egan 