Stone and Instants
453 · 2 October 03
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For days together, (Fontaine de Médicis, Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris)
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in these new ancient streets, (Barri Gòtic, Barcelona)
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we will learn to let moments escape. (El Raval, Barcelona)
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What we know by our residual urgency, (Outside MACBA, Barcelona)
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will know us by its own deterioration. (El Raval, Barcelona)
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We will not barter for someone else's self-images. (Palau de la Virreina, Barcelona)
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If these do not turn out to be our temples, (Park Güell, Barcelona)
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we may still be priests in the corridors. (Casa Amatller, Barcelona)
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These places will murmur to us of lucid rituals (Casa Milà, Barcelona)
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in incandescent galleries, (Casa Milà, Barcelona)
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like we are fugitives from toy horizons, (Casa Milà, Barcelona)
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but we have only come to breathe in this light. (Sagrada Familia, Barcelona)
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In these tours of other people's redemptions, (Sagrada Familia from Casa Milà, Barcelona)
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as if architecture could constitute theology, (Sagrada Familia, Barcelona)
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learning to whisper in another language (Sagrada Familia, Barcelona)
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is never the same as inhabiting its poetry or prayers, (Casa Milà, Barcelona)
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but where the words are foreign, the spaces between them are universal. (Sagrada Familia, Barcelona)
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We will ask unanswerable questions of rhetorical oracles, (Notre Dame, Paris)
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and if every one shows us to yet another center of the world, (Notre Dame, Paris)
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we will know they mean that in any direction we get closer. (Notre Dame, Paris)
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If we knew how to build churches, there would only be one. (Notre Dame, Paris)
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If we knew how to build churches, we would leave stones alone and build fleeting cathedrals inside of instants. (Notre Dame, Paris)
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And so our churches are empty, (Notre Dame, Paris)
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and our stores are full, (Galeries Lafayette, Paris)
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and we are lost in hours. (Sacré-Coeur from Musée d'Orsay, Paris)
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Half of our truths see through us, (Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe (Edouard Manet), Musée d'Orsay, Paris)
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but half need us. (Untitled (Djamel Tatah), Centre Pompidou, Paris)
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We raise fortresses around the things we think we know, (Venus di Milo, Louve, Paris)
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not to protect them, (Mona Lisa, Louvre, Paris)
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but to protect us. (Tour Eiffel, Paris)
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Tomorrow we will be miles and days away from here, (Musée d'Orsay, Paris)
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and from each of these altars between churches, (Fontaine de Médicis, Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris)
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we will learn to let go of every meaning but one. (Aéroport Charles de Gaulle, Paris)