Anecdote of the Jar

I placed a jar in Tennessee, And round it went, upon a hill. It made the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it, And sprawled around, no longer wild. The jar was round upon the ground And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion everywhere. The jar was gray and bare. It did not give of bird or bush, Like nothing else in Tennessee.

When I naked in a sanctuary, With flowers around my feet, I was met with ungraspable ease. Except that, in forgetfulness,
I would know the jar as mine,
And though empty and insufficient,
It held that unending
Possibility to expand beyond mere lack, To take me into larger places.

• Wallace Stevens