LITERARY GAZETTE

By: literaryadmin

Aug 15 2011

Tags: Armchair and Lamp, Dream of Eventual Serenity, IRENE O’GARDEN

Category: Uncategorized

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By IRENE O’GARDEN

Collapse and ruin everywhere I look on this tsunami-devastated island. Over here, thousands of collapsed identical orange structures: fallen posts and fabric, as if The Gates in Central Park had broken and blown down at once.
Here, amid the many staggering survivors, the other devastation: absolute repression by the government. People may not gather. All but brief conversations can be terminated by arrest. The fascist force, a mirror of their fear.
I talk in snippets with my husband. For safety, we wander off in different directions. Yet within this full destruction and restriction, something liberating, too: there’s nothing to be done.
Men gather momentarily. They jest, as if buying drinks for one another.
I gaze at the Broken Gates awhile. An angled piece of fabric takes my eye. I tug until a graceful swoop appears. Light pours, glows the fabric. I adjust a rock, incorporate a stick, assemble one or two more things, and top it with a tiny needle-needy evergreen.
My composition pleases me. I’d like to take a picture. But, New Era. Can’t photograph. Quite possibly, I never will again.
Nearby, an upright sapling tangle. One sapling bears a hollow-centered knot. I reach over and “click” next to the hole, as if it were a shuttered aperture.
I move on, hoping passersby enjoy my assemblage before it disassembles.
Soon, a little tree with many branches which terminate in tiny shelf formations. I place things on the shelves: a bit of shell, a pebble. Others left things, too. I like this: the invitation to leave something. Even litter would be interesting, so placed.
I find deep serenity. Even when all’s lost, art continues bringing pleasure, to those who create and those who experience.
I look up. A vivid little moon. And just behind it, a shadowy gigantic moon. Which is real? Beautiful, this site, this sight, but not for comprehension, quite. A pupil moon within an iris moon.