5. Crucible

HOT gold runs a winding stream on the inside of a green bowl.

Yellow trickles in a fan figure, scatters a line of skirmishers, spreads a chorus of dancing girls, performs blazing ochre evolutions, gathers the whole show into one stream, forgets the past and rolls on.

The sea-mist green of the bowl’s bottom is a dark throat of sky crossed by quarreling forks of umber and ochre and yellow changing faces.