Unshown in du Musée du Louvre
by Little-Think-Tank Dr. Eimer
once upon a short eternity
a being made the world
he did not bring it into was
or will or be but splashed
the whole thing t'ward
we he said and like he said
and maybe it will go the way
i thought it would but no
it never did for all the things
that he allowed or thought
or just encouraged would not
could not and refused to should
then he became not sick or mad
nor filled with endlessness
of great and fierce remorse
he watched instead while
thousand
strange and wild anomalies
arranged themselves in lines
unknown and not at all chaotic
` these he smiled at smiled and
called
his own their odd and crazy loves
their way of being nice
and ev'n their thoughts of
self-protection
montgomery wilde nash kroetsch
dant cooley yeats and arnason
brandt livesay moodie cohen
braun
elves makers of our selves
Notice how not one stone is
left unturned when the hunters have come over the wall but they will have the
fox out of hiding? Notice how wild a place looks till you have lived at the
site for a few days and then it all seems tame as gorse in your back yard? Observe
the nature of stars on a cold night in the backwoods, how they glitter as if
they knew nothing but the art of gilding porcelain? Think for a moment about
the odd angle of rock sometimes where a million years ago its weight brought it
from its height and sent it down to the lake a hundred feet below. The crevasse
it left is at right angles to all the other right angle of granite and becomes
a cave where indigenous people come to lay offerings of tobacco and cloth. Perceive the immediate ease with which a gull,
white against the dark of conifers, follows the wake of a passing motorboat,
searching for minnows disoriented by the thrusting propellers. Concern yourself
for a moment with the rawness of December that, snow-chilled, gathers around
the bare ankles of ladies in automobiles inching along in traffic after a late
night at the Theatre Centre. Speak out the odd names of tyrants who wake at
three a.m. to go to the bathroom and notice the large moon that brightens the
pillars of their palaces. Presage a small person crayoning colors that in their
dreams they have selected for their next day's palette. Consider the uneaten golden waffle that sits
in its dish on the counter next to the breadbox until it is discarded two days
later as inedible, and above it, in the blue cupboard, the enduring syrup.
Whisper the words that might make a simple thing of a lover who has left for
Turkey to spend a year studying political science and might not ever return to
see you happy again, as happy as you were the month you knew her before her
departure. Contemplate the sun's light on a stretch of dirt road not wide enough
to allow two vehicles to pass, where this mile willows, and that mile only
grass, borders it, witness now and then to the churning of dust and stones
thrown up by some swift passage. Think Rudy Wiebe's particular thoughts about
natives and reserves and the strain of purpose his writings attempt to unload. Reflect
what neat objects remain shown and unshown in du Musée du Louvre in galleries,
walkways, dungeons, and still unrestored cells and catacombs. Remember the
little breast of your neice as she bent to play the banjo, with first her right
and then her left hand on the strings.
(to be continued)
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