On Method -- Mary Margaret Sloan

For day was wearing on and in darkness we were guided
by the spectacle, its chromatic scale flowering in
repeated migrations of constituents,
blue, red, or uncertain, incorruptible as diamonds.

Remote light shattered at our feet in the optical
palace, interior walls, as always, painted dead black in
order to prevent internal reflections.
Alarmists consoled us. Were their intentions curious?
Rough treatment? Couldn't it be all one way, indivisible,

or all one direction, a linear graph from nothing
to benevolence? Our guide had removed, wandering
the rough and stony hills, where frequent springs
issued a shining substance of inconspicuous works.