A Story

A farmhouse slowly bursts into flame,
consuming the night and then consumed
by it. The occupants stand in damp
grass, not yet touched by the cold,
their neighbours gathering round.
Only the hearth can be reclaimed,
no small heroic dashes will retrieve
the homely details and supports
of living.
At first light, one man
dons fire-resistant clothes, takes
instruments, then enters the ruin,
walking among blue and yellow flares.
He gathers his harvest of buckled steel
and half-molten bits of machinery,
grasping their heat, their pliability.
Again and again he goes in, wading
through heat waves and the choking air
filled with dawn light. Already,
his mind and body are moving into
and around and with the shapes,
the gestures, of the metal, connecting
and juxtaposing them, moulding a sculpture
that, in six weeks, will move itself
to the accompaniment of bangs and whirrings,
parodying the century's mechanical dream,
imitating the play of children,
rehearsing creation's first sound,
somewhere inside it a piece of flint
inscribed with the name, Jean Tinguely.