Aaron Shurin

Sphere

Here is the view from on high: the planks of bamboo set, the mossy bridges strung, the squeak of each rung as they climb, rooftops melting into clouds as they wheel by…with shoulders set, and orbit eyes. Here is their view from the rise, a heap of tinfoil and slate—they stare at the hills as if into each other’s eyes where the jumping spark hides…This is their way, in spectrum altitude…a rave of light…a falling ray on low into the empty streets, the cardboard box of day and vagrant air, the open plaza with its cones of whirling dust, the iron benches under hanging branches in a precious slip from this of shade—this is the jeweled stair they raised…from this outpost with its burnished distant spires that sprang into view from the wings like painted screen, a memory play…how they laid the giant blazing strips of sunlight— almost solid glaze—how they stretched the shadow-spills and spread their bloom: a looming wedge of laurel trees, a courtyard arch, a rickety bus-stop hut engulfed by cool gray folds, the tilted paving stones and mottled earth awash in pools of sun and shade—this is the living light they made…how they carved up space and flexed the hills into rolling mounds, and jacked up the streets and pitched the ground—how they came back to where they began each time and rounded out the view as if they’d bent the arc, and smeared the sky with pink, and drank, and bled the ink…

Guanajuato, MX