Landscape with Flaying of Marsyas, Claude Lorrain
And when Enlightenment fails there’s a tool
small enough to fit in your inside pocket
on a tour of the Alps or the Outer Hebrides,
smooth as a lady’s compact, slightly curved,
filled with the mineral powder of darkness
that dims the excesses of subjectivity,
blots Romantic tears, contracts a view
into the palm of the hand, keeps you back
from the edge of the vertiginous ravine
the sublime opens up in your mind.
Turn away from the landscape, hold up
the glass, shield your face from the sun: