Up another flight to the skylit top floor and walk past the limestone of classical Cypress and cross the hall above the dark medieval ages of plague and pestilence through the renaissance and into the accomplishments of 19th century Europe, dark red images of the Inferno and the Isle of Death, winter sunsets, portraits of muted aristocrats to capture their likeness before development of photography, daguerrotypes proliferated and painting abstracted into gracefully blurred movement of Degas’ ballet dancers and bathing women and through the threshold to Boudin’s beaches, Latour’s lilies, roses and aster, into full impressionism of Seurat’s pixelated pointillism, Monet’s dappled gardens and Cezanne’s vibrating bucolics, splashes of verdant haze, see the splotches textured up close and back out they meld to form a foreign landscape breathing through the canvas, further back past the 20th century threshold lost form into abstraction colors interacting Pollock crazy or Rothko calm, however you cope with a world at war, sit for a moment to meditate before rising and walking downstairs through modernity’s metropolis and Benton’s room of industrial Americana, down the hall past the bathroom and finally back through the sculpture garden with grand skylight overhead shining on stone Perseus who triumphantly holds the head of the slain gorgon, shield as a coping mechanism, don’t look directly, Andromeda waits for him to rescue her from the sea monster, and past four allegories of the elements with mothers and cherub, serenade for winds, fire, earth, water before exiting the backd[oo]r…
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Rrrrgg Movement? Rrrrfff again! Knot loosening as air pressure moving through, out? The other end! Quick up, unplug, wheel over to the bathroom, sit, and feel on the inside…
urrrggg
the knot loosens
urrrfffrrrr
Fffft!
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Outside! Park air, deep breath into the trees with Cleopatra’s heliopole pointing up towards the sun and unending heavens of expanding universe, across the road to the Great Lawn green except infield dirt where the ball players squat in ready position for the crack contact of the bat and quick reaction to catch throw in one motion to first but error rolls around hot dog stand and ice cream cart nearby blankets with picnicking couples, kids birthday party marked by helium balloons let go and floating off above the trees over father and daughter standing by statues of Prospero and Miranda in front of Delacorte Theater and into Shakespeare’s garden, rustic benches and gnarled wooden fences around the full spectrum chroma blooming daffodil tulip anemone primrose quince epimedium brunnera crown imperial fritillaria swallowtail monarchs, bronze plaque with his quotes: hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram, how full of briers, the half-blown rose, this bud of love, in a cowslip’s bell, rosemary for remembrance.
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