Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
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| Clock of the Académie Française, Paris Andre Kertesz (1932) |
She has gathered pigeon feathers
from beneath the clock tower
where they lie scattered like little bits of wind
or piled in iridescent drifts
beneath window arches and cornices.
Now she is weaving them
into a mantle of bright shadows
pinkened down, tealed plume
pinions of smoke and ash
to cloak her frailty
in a cloud of dull light.
He is keeper of the clock
winder of coils and springs,
inspector of the great hands’ slow toil
and pendulum’s swing,
who has measured his life
in gradations of the hour; all that is circadian, mute.
Now he is peering down at the world
but all he sees is time
in the painstaking march of tired feet,
a minute too late to contemplate heaven
and the last angel
dwindling from grey into blue.
Camera FLASH! in the Imaginary Garden.
