The Correspondence Principle

that the atoms correspond to the sun and planets
was superstition - the need to see more in stars
than a slow burn-up induced by weight · out

at the gybe-mark dinghies turn about · a swelling
of cold sails on standing waves · scenes

of a sunday with ice-cream vendors and awnings
that flap and fill in the breeze · things stable
i gave up for things steady but still i insisted
on visuality · light came and got in the way

coupling with objects as if only fingers
could touch the porcelain glaze of the sky · summers

here are like that · the room dissolves in the heat
and on the coffee-table the grin of a cheshire cat
settles on the china · what can i do but look

in fullness alone clarity resides, but in the abyss
all truth abides · it was paradox freed me from the role
of fictional observer whom experiment sanctifies
with an extrinsic view · girls stroll

on the promenade below · young their eyes
like pygmalion olives on a plate · their every gesture

an appeal to be mouth and hand · when a smile reaches me
i am only that man on a balcony whose best years
weigh on his waistband · their stares

remind us that we are irreducibly
part of the whole · every attempt to represent
the world lacks something since nothing

can prise us from our pictures · white
napkins next to the cutlery then the afternoon:
it is always an i who says we · light
and matter spectral lines furthest from the nucleus

merge to a single contour that permits
their transfer to the customary frame · the antinomy

of whole sentences · syllables consonants and vowels
suggested comparison with elementary particles · it
was nothing but my intractable insistence

on calculable states · soon it will rain · the gulls
withdraw infinitely engrossed in their circles
till clouds wipe off their chalky lines again
in my language though the noun

submitted to the verb · instead of this imagine
a pencil balancing with its tip on the very next

word · no one can predict to which side it will fall
across these pages · it wasn't with that
these letters were written · signed only with a glyph

(Niels Bohr)