Electra.
I think I'm going to pass on that.
All right.
OK.
Electra.
And this is what Dr. Samuel Johnson in his dictionary
has to say about the amber.
Amber, which having the quality when
warmed by friction of attracting bodies
gave to one species of attraction
the name of electricity and to the body that so
attract the epithet electric.
And the poem's really about amber.
These are the preserved tears that plenty knew so well.
In the cold sun of amber, they stare out
of their jewel cask unresolved
by the galactic world.
We suspect that Antonio Stradivari made varnish
with their dust to seal the precious umber of his wood.
They lay upon the living breath of heaven, said the chef.
The indwelling, ever-present evil eye
faltered in the flicker of this wine congealed
in the hot primeval thunderhead, wept
from those boughs and roots that sheltered the naked animal,
he who ran upright and hid in the ancient crotches
of the mother of air, the mother of Earth,
the mother of rain, the tree.