A Not Unruffled Surface

A Not Unruffled Surface

A Not Unruffled Surface

The sky was laced with Irish cream mist, that mellow tan overhanging 
         the hills, which were studded with deathmasks and baskets 
         spilling flowers from both ends. 
We scanned the haze for lightning.
They were studded with earthworks and iron forks inserted between 
         leaves of grass, jacks and bearings and balances, sinuous fin-
         gers of pink marble and synovial joints in bronze.
But if we got struck by lightning—not a lot; say glanced, or shaved, 
         there was a chance (we heard) it wouldn\'t be so bad: a 
         little refreshing, a little like La Vita Nuova in a readable 
         translation.
“In a flash,” as they say, we could acquire a self-renewing subscrip-
         tion to classical music (it\'s always classical in the scien-
         tific literature) accessible at all hours and piped into the 
         forebrain from the hypothalamus.
 
This space available for celebrations.
Someone visits for the first time and says, “Oh, let\'s get married here” 
         and guests drive in and eye the hors d\'oeuvre tent before 
         finding a folding chair.
But it isn\'t long before the mirroring going on between, for instance, 
         the sculptures and
the trees—the trees looking more like sculptures, the sculptures get-
         ting seasoned, growing bark (patinas) even—it isn\'t long 
         before it hypnotizes the guests.
Who would wear a wedding dress in such a charged atmosphere, hav-
         ing heard that ghost story of the wedding dress with the 
         power to possess the soul of the bride?
Actually it was a horror flick from somewhere, Tokyo or Calcutta . . .
It was a wedding dress that took possession of the soul of its bride the 
         minute she saw it in the mirror, or it saw itself—and this 
         we know happens, but not with the malevolence of this 
         dress that wreaked havoc at the reception, set the hall on 
         fire and dropped a crate of champagne on the string trio.
“Aha,” cries the groom as he realizes the chrysalis of evil he must di-
         vide from his bride: “You are hardly an unruffled surface!”
No you would not want to wear that dress amid the wireless network 
         of gigantic sculptures and their wind-scraped murmuring.
When the wind stirs, is it not the gardeners?
The gardeners are invisible, they don’t garden during business hours.
As you’d put a dye in the air in order to see it, a bird sucked through 
         its drafts advertises the invisible and upgrades it to naked.