JAMES TURRELL Poem by Lucebert

the artist made seamless spaces
in the stedelijk museum of amsterdam
spaces turned away from all shadow
and from the clamour of all body
I knew that here a smith of light became
the servant of my eyes because I saw
as if for the first time myself and I saw
in the quiet of a waterfall in the distance
me made to transport light like
a river back to the sun

this light smith he came from afar
and I have never met him

yet in my thoughts I flew together
with my friends who had been cajoled
into flying along with jim in his small plane
above the dead wounds of an old country
and over the malice-flesh and the crave-swelling
of new exploitation regions there in the american west

and I saw with them the sun go down and all hope
of still more gold and blood gloriously depart
saw that the moon again grew large
and thought: she is once again in the mood
with down there that adult child
chosen to give a countenance to mists

when we descended into the crater of jim's volcano
for that is his house
while the stars all simultaneously jumped up in the cockpit
I briefly dreamed that I was half nothing half cat
who just like the universe
is satisfied to play with its own tail