Aquarium

My little fish were dreamt On a thousand and one nights In scheherazadian fable And rainbow splendour of colour 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 the 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 or primal night For my delight.