THE SHAPE OF THINGS

Commissioned by Harvard Art Museums

2MIN 16MM B+W 4:3

2016

At Tikal – William Bronk

Mountains they knew, and jungle, the sun, the stars --

these seemed to be there. But even after they slashed

the jungle and burned it and planted the comforting corn,

they were discontent. They wanted the shape of things.

They imagined a world and it was as if it were there

-- a world with stars in their places and rain that came

when they called. It closed them in. Stone by stone,

as they built this city, these temples, they built this world.

They believed it. This was the world, and they,

of course, were the people. Now trees make up

assemblies and crowd in the wide plazas. Trees

climb the stupendous steps and rubble them.

In the jungle, the temples are little mountains again.

It is always hard like this, not having a world,

to imagine one, to go to the far edge

apart and imagine, to wall whether in

or out, to build a kind of cage for the sake

of feeling the bars around us, to give shape to a world.

And oh, it is always a world and not the world.