Quiet room, four candles, red wine in pottery

VIII.  In Patmos

by Lawrence Durrell

Quiet room, four candles, red wine in pottery: 

Our conversation burning like a fuse, 

In this cone of light like some emulsion: 

Aristarchus of Samos was only half a man 

Believing he could make it all coherent 

Without the muddled limits of a woman's arm, 

Darning a ladder, warming the begging-bowl. 

Quiet force of candles burning in pools of oak, 

Conducted by the annals of the word 

Towards poor Aristarchus. If he was only half 

A man, Melissa, then I am the other half, 

Not in believing with him but by failing to.