A NEW NEW GUIDE
by Lara Egger
1.
Look at this orange. When Rothko
painted No. 12, 1954 was he thinking
of a setting sun, or a piece of fruit?
In every language I know,
the word for both is the same.
In ancient Greek, there is no blue,
so Homer said wine-dark,
and honey was green; even the sky
stretched like a canvas above the Aegean
was cast in bronze. Sometimes, at night,
I worry about what I’m missing,
simply because I don’t know the word for it.
2.
This man is walking his dog. They are growing
old together. The dog has learnt to walk
like the man, or the man has been trained, by the dog,
to walk like him. The man’s wife, who is waiting
in the kitchen on their third-floor walk-up watching
waves of coffee flood the Bakelite dome of their percolator
walks like the dog too. I once dated a Russian
mass spectometrist who said when he spoke to his dog
his dog spoke back. Brilliant, but he had a drinking problem.
3.
Look at this actor. He is the protagonist of a terrible tragedy.
He is using the Stanislavsky technique to play the part.
Right before the third act, the director instructs him to cry.
The actor tries to think of something sad; he tries to remember
a time in his life when he had the blues so bad he was almost
broken, but he thinks of nothing. In that moment, the actor realizes
he has not truly lived, and is overwhelmed by sadness.
He uses this method every night to a sold-out show.
4.
The Australians and the Japanese have collaborated
to genetically engineer a blue rose. The experiment has failed.
The rose is lavender (itself another thing)
with an aura at its edges that looks glass-blower blue.
Look at it. One might say it’s approaching perfection.
5.
Look at this chapel. It stands next to Casa Mingo,
the oldest cider house in Madrid.
The cider house is now a restaurant
famed for its roasted chicken.
One sits at the wooden trestle tables
wresting flesh from bone
while Goya’s ghost waves frantically
from the chapel’s steeple.
6.
Look at the moon. Apparently, some men
have walked on it. I wonder
what it smelled like up there.
I wonder if Neil, walking
around the farmer’s market
on a crisp Sunday morning,
dog leash in one hand, wife’s purse
in the other, paused by an apple
or a bunch of parsnips, and said,
Carol, this is it! I haven’t smelled the moon in years!
7.
In this film, a woman practices the art of calligraphy
on her lovers’ skin. She is not always pleased with them;
too oily, too dry, too much hair, too wrinkled.
Then she meets Jerome, whose skin (and everything else)
until he meets his tragic end, is perfect. I have often wondered
why we bury or burn our dead. For those who die young
and whose beauty has not yet abandoned them,
there ought to be something else.
8.
Look at the road. It runs 100 miles in the same direction
yet we can only see a few hundred feet ahead. They call this
a trick of perspective. I wonder, though, if we could glimpse
the end, would we have the energy or courage to travel it?
9.
On the 13th of June every year,
young women come to the chapel to pray to Saint Anthony
for a husband. For their part, the husbands
are elsewhere. They are in a field catching lizards.
10.
Two trains leave the station at the same time.
One is a luxury express. Its seats are upholstered
with full-grain leather, the kind that smells like
spice-box and pine, and it’s dining car,
open all day and night, serves crust-less tea sandwiches
and real French champagne. The other is a slow-going
freight train. It has a small, cramped car for passengers
who purchase their tickets at a discounted fee,
and along the way makes several stops, hefting
goods onto and from its wagons.
Though both trains arrive at the same destination,
it is unlikely they’ll ever pass each other.
11.
Look at these geese. It is common here, late August, to see
flocks of them scattered like river stones across a park
or patch of grass on the side of a busy road. Wild animals.
It is not uncommon, but amazes me every time.
Things like this amaze me every time.
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