We skirted the broken pillars and entered, one by one,
via the gravel creek.
Inside the mood was festive. We tossed off our coats
and made our way around the periphery. There was much to
celebrate. The wit of the man in the fitted suit had set the tone.
People grew taller, congratulations all around. A sea of streamers
cascaded down, motioning us forward. There were no
boundaries, now. We let go our passports,
and entered the auditorium.
Excitement gave way to caution, caution to worriment,
worriment to dread. The focus had narrowed. What was on view
was our view, and that dissolved into our experience. Buildings
seemed primed to topple, and obstacles lay about,
everywhere. The ladder, for example, was impossibly built,
the rungs
like large logs and made moist
by numerous floods. And then there was the vast outdoor space with
electric charges everywhere. Someone had poured a boiling
substance and opened a hole in the earth, making escape
a challenge, to say the least.
My purse flew open, and the contents spilled out, I clutched it
tightly anyway, and then it was us on the edge of the cliff,
with the lousy ladder, and nowhere to go, but down.
She is your daughter. She is your water.
Remembering now:
The solferino sky, that came before us, that came between us.
Reaching bottom, we continued on. A growing, unseen colony
softening the ground, beneath our feet.
