Les Voleurs D'or, Un deuil au Bout do Monde - 1877* (1)
.
We Celeste Mogodoned* (2)
and even Ned Kellyed* (3) through all six floors
of the State Library, Victoria.
Caro took her awe-struck time,
squint-eye-scrutinised every calling-carded-description.
Poor Caro,
blatantly-patently-palpably starved.
I trotted after, a-be-mused,
but truth be told,
overwhelmingly... gratified.
.
Haha - she likes libraries - goody!
.
We gauche-guppy-gawped (though I'd been
umpteen times before) at the celestial domed reading room
with its octagon courtroom ambience
and pagoda-like librarian station deep-scar-carved
and Ave Maria, pulpit-pedestaled,
humped and hubbed with eight grandiose carreled spokes
caREERing,
carouSELing,
Catherine-WHEELing -
fractaling thought.
(A genuine 'shushing' space if ever there was one).
Walls white-icing-garlanded and theatre-boxed recalled
the opulence of the Palais Garnier
though no
Baroque cherubim or nymphs cavorted
nor did
the sumptuous socialise and flirt,
determined to be seen.
I origamied eyes
and tried to partere-see* (4)
but smelled black powder* (5), instead... Ughhhh!
- asphyxiating intake of breath - Who? What? When?
Quandary...
and as my eyes rem-ed, you
returned
blew soft breath
upon my crush-crumpled features
interleaved fingers
and said: 'Open, love,'
and I did
open...
with eyes still scrunched shut
and then
I be gan to b r e a aaa a t h e.
.
1 The French Consul's Wife: Memoirs of C\u00e9leste de Chabrillan in Gold-Rush Australia - part of an exhibition at the State Library, Victoria.
2 Mogodon - Celeste Mogodon - ex-brothel owner
3 Ned Kelly - Leader of the infamous Kelly Gang who wore home-made armour at his last stand and attempted to fight his way out of an ambush.
4 partere - The word parterre comes from the French par and terre and literally translated means "on the ground."
5 There was an attempted assassination of Emperor Napoleon III at the entrance to the Salle Le Peletier on 14 January 1858.
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