The beauty and terror, the crystal moment when
All breathing stops. But you wouldn’t stand still under that dome
in dim shadows, under that dome lit by ferocious
rays of harmony. And it didn’t take your breath away.
You walked like a tireless ape among the gods,
For you knew—or maybe not—that the Triumph was unfurling
its weapons inside Plato’s cavern: images,
shadows without substance, sovereignty of emptiness. You wanted
to reach the tree and the bird, the leftovers
from a humble backyard fiesta, the desert land
watered with blood, the scene of the crime where
statues of photographers and police are grazing, and the hostility of life
outdoors. Ah, the hostility of life outdoors!
Roberto Bolaño, The Romantic Dogs, trans. by Laura Healy (London: Picador, 2011), 39.
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