If
so, taste not just of the time dictated
these winged, bird-footed, lion-pawed Gorgons, Sphinxes,
rampant rams, this chuckling dove-jockey godling,
but of the makers.
The consumers manifestly were adult.
Were and are. They wore the work of child labor;
gape at these glass cases; buy in the gift shop
facsimiles - oh,
fairly good, yet lackluster once adorning
creatures such as us: big, unwieldy, mortal,
who eat, sleep, age, worry, and linger over
representations
of what never was and what is eternal.
Small deft fingers endlessly reinvented
idioms of ornament that translated
myth into· human
artifact and image. The first enchantment
lingers still in copies from my poor bracelet
(now long vanished) to the ones on display here.
I pass them, leaving
realms of gold, realms mythic and precious, priceless,
for the precincts (how huge and dim they seem now)
of the rest of the Museum first; then stairs; and then Fifth
Avenue. Winter.
