Memoirs of a Saint II
after Rene Magritte’s Les mémoires d’un saint, 1960
Daniel Hudon
What if at the beach one day,
with a long, long stretch
of your arm, you peel off
the horizon without letting
the clouds
wan-
der
away
or the waves
die,
you roll it up like a mural
and take it home
under your arm?
What then?
What if your mural
became the lining for a set
of red velvet curtains
that you tied
with a red velvet rope
and stood on end
in an empty room
in your house until you figured out
where you could un-
furl such a masterpiece again?
And what if a few days later
you came back to the room
in the middle of the night
because you heard
a sound
and you saw the curtains
standing
freely
their ends opening
to reveal inside
the billowed white clouds
aloft
in the sky
and curled along the bottom,
diligent and true,
the windblown waves
galloping in?
And what if, after being tied so tightly,
the curtains
still showed a slight
depression at the waist?
Would you be surprised?
Would you concede
that we create the world?
What then?
Originally from Canada, Daniel Hudon is an adjunct lecturer in math, astronomy and physics. He writes nonfiction, fiction and poetry. He is the author of The Bluffer’s Guide to the Cosmos (Oval Books, London) and a chapbook of prose and poetry Evidence for Rainfall (Pen and Anvil, Boston). His new book, Brief Eulogies for Lost Animals: An Extinction Reader (Pen and Anvil), was named a “Must Read” in the 2019 Mass Book Awards. He can be found at danielhudon.com, @daniel_hudon and in Boston, MA.
