Light 08
Memories of Versailles France
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the pools of versaillesthey built the fountains to impress a godwho turned out to be a short man in heelswith debt up to his powdered wig.I stood there in July with the rest of the herd,eight euros for a warm beer by the canal,watching water shoot up out of stonethat took forty years and a thousand broken backsto carve.the tour guide keeps saying magnificent.sure. magnificent the way a heavy tab is magnificentwhen somebody else’s grandkids pick it up.the stones don’t care.they’ve been rained on for three hundred yearsand they’ll be rained on for three hundred more,long after your phone diesand the gift shop closes.and the hall of mirrors, christ.you shuffle through with two hundred strangerssweating in their vacation clothes,and every mirror shows you the same thing:a room built to hold everythingholding nothing.that’s the trick nobody tells you.the mirrors were the whole point.you come to see the palaceand the palace shows you yourself,tired, ordinary, mortal,standing in the middle of the most expensiveempty room ever made.the king looked in these same mirrors.he saw a god.the glass knew better.the glass always knows better.so drink the warm beer.look in the mirror.let the emptiness look back.it’s the only honest thing in the whole damn place,and it doesn’t charge admission.
