On Stepping Out in Oodi’s Level Three

On Stepping out in Oodi's Level Three

1904.   Nothing can prepare the visitor
        For the uplift, the sense of air
        On stepping out in Oodi's level three
        Of daylight shapes and lines;
        Here I must be and simply be
        Under a white canopy of waves
        A hundred meters long wooden floor
        Tapered and raised at both ends,
        And I see it, the feet understand:
        A ship's deck on a warped hull
        Yielding to the roll of the sea.
        A polyhedron in wood up by the bow,
        Round geometry by the master himself; 
        Quiet elation when the art is right,
        Only the one, yet it commands the room,
        Divina Proportione, don't get carried away;
        Thirteen hundred years have passed
        From one master to the other
        Contemplating under layered clouds; *)
        I sit sated in winter light.

New in Index Ten Thousand:
Geometry • 1904; Winter light • 1904.

Oodi is the Helsinki Central Library opened in 2018. Oodi is the Finnish word for ode.

Ai Wei Wei (1957- ) multiartist, humanist; the sculpture in Oodi is Divine Proportion (2012).

*) Du Fu (712-770), Contemplating Mount Tai (736) in David Hinton's translation or Gazing on the Peak in Stephen Owen's translation.