French Countryside
The
sky is like mercury
The heavens mercurial
The earth is bathed in mercurochrome
and
mercy is the cure
I
walk alone in Burgundian wonder:
to Byzantium still,
with the world
so
insecure?
August 6, 2002
* * * *
When
books were new in Gutenburgtime
up the river Rhine
in Mainz,
in a printer's shop on the press it read:
"Let the Word
go forth - a new consensus is born."
Then
they spread it around the continent
from Germany to Paris,
from Venice to Lyon
the
crux of southern Europe.
Serving Italy and Spain, for the reading-prone,
it was in Lyon where
you caught the early train
to
Cicero St. Augustine
and all that praise
of God that's in between
the
page and man,
if you were a book
fan.
Maybe
it's like recorded sound a hundred years from the start.
Gutenburg is Edison and I am a man of middle age in 1552.
The Renaissance is in decline
but these eyes of
mine have seen
my
own devotions of the heart,
like an early master,
play a part
in
the history of the art.
Now
the printer comes to town unknown.
Typeset faces trademark serifs characters italic
and apprentice to
no man.
(nine
walks across the land to Istanbul)
O
Sacre Coeur as it were
O font of every blessing
- Self-fulfill
Though I am prone to wander
and to leave the God
I love -
plead
my lowly case above:
I
walk to Lyon in January just for the thrill,
at
the groin of southern Europe,
if
you will.
Copyright
@ Arthur Garfunkel
Used by Permission of Author. All Rights Reserved.
