HORAE, ARRIVING

Learning that marble is now imported from China before being carved by robots in Carrara according to plots computed by remote artists so as to be labeled, then, "Made in Carrara/Italy/etc."— & trying in earnest not merely, simplistically, to mourn the outmoded craftsmen, even those making Christs in concrete, still, aware that Marx's industrial optimism didn't get workers much in the way of rest—

o Ruskin retching in your grave: "And now in 1872, rowing by steam, digging by steam, driving by steam, here, behold, are a troublesome pair of human arms out of employ." —Fors Clavigera: Letters to the Workmen and Labourers of Great Britain, vol. 1, letter XX, written from Venice, 3 July, 1872—

the very day our break from futzing onscreen consists of picking olives in the garden, pocketful by pocketful, into several sacks, to make kilos that will put us in search all over town of jars—

having sensed oneself moored at the very core of Mediterranean culture, there, finally, between the powdery silver leaves and the fruit-clumps delectable to humans and worms, understanding at first hand why the Athenians would have preferred this gift to some spring of the sea.