The Reductive Fallacy

The dew-damp wings of dawn unfold,
Brushing the hills with sapphire sheen
All shot with scarlet - soon the green
Will gather lustre, laquered gold.

Like weeds that wear the bloom of beauty
But for the seed that spreads their blight,
Is dawn's astounding gift of light
Superfluous to some meaner duty?

All here is one, the levels blend,
The whole has no redundant part,
No waste, nor flaw. Where human art
May, failing finite human ends,

Know imperfection, total nature,
Master of the fletcher's craft,
Sets glorious quills on every shaft
She sharpens for the fateful archer,

TIme, whose every arrow sunders
Into a stream of spectral barbs,
Weaving the rainbow-braided garbs
Of Being in seamless cloth of splendour.

Above, the morning spreads its beams
As guileless as an open palm:
This gift of life, no shallow sham,
Is more, not less, than what it seems.