The bowl is shattered
The great blue bowl;
Where it held roses – bronze and burning,
Summer's heat caught in a clump of petals,
Giving to lips of a bending woman
Warmth in change for a cold hard kiss-
There lies a puddle of shivering water,
Menacing edges of pottery broken,
And a thorny mess of bedraggled blooms.
"What a bowl it was,
The great blue bowl,"
The curio collector cupped his hands.
"One had never noticed for the roses brimmed over-
One had never noticed for the roses glowed so."
Mocking were the lips of the painted women,
Heavy on the arms of their querulous lovers;
They always said that the bowl would be broken;
They always wished that it would be broke,
For the roses glowed so.
Why did you break, O great blue bowl:
Was it for bearing of too much beauty?
Was it for hearing of people praising
The flowers you fed from your welling heart?
Pieces of bowl and petals of roses
Are swept up together with a dirty big broom.
Colin Bingham (1929)