Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                     “LA Fires Bring Art to a Halt”

                 Hyperallergic: Sensitive to Art and Its Discontents


No.

A fire brings nothing to a halt

To the last respiration of the very last soul
And beyond: Art will live because Art lives -

A poet abandoning her car to flee for her life
Holds to her heart her notebooks in a grocery-store bag

To the last respiration of the very last soul
And beyond: Art will live because Art lives

A trumpeter manages to save the mouthpiece at least
While carrying his child out to an ambulance

To the last respiration of the very last soul
And beyond: Art will live because Art lives

A sculptor’s eyes record a wall of windows
To be re-molded as life-filled windows of dreams

To the last respiration of the very last soul
And beyond: Art will live because Art lives:

Firefighters wrestling a hose through smoke and heat
Are a choreograph of life against flaming death

To the last respiration of the very last soul
And beyond: Art will live because Art lives

An artist whose studio is now but smoke
Will stir ashes and water, and paint again

To the last respiration of the very last soul
And beyond: Art will live because Art lives

A little girl will write of her little dog
Her bestest pal whom she never saw again

To the last respiration of the very last soul
And beyond: Art will live because Art lives

In a shelter tonight an aging man
Will sing to himself the love songs of his youth

To the last respiration of the very last soul
And beyond: Art will live because Art lives



                                                        ­       then patch

                    a few words together and don’t try
                    to make them elaborate, this isn’t
                    a contest but the doorway

                                   -Mary Oliver, “Praying”