“The Lightning Field”, Walter De Maria’s desert artwork.
… “The Lightning Field” was ready to offer up its magic.
Seen from the porch, the rods marched away in phalanxes to the south. As the sun sank over our right shoulders, the metal spikes started to glow in the golden light. Their pointed tips took fire first, like candles, but soon the spikes themselves lighted up, top to bottom, as if glowing from within.
“This is like a sea, and these ships are moving in the distance” one of us said. “They look like centurions coming at you,” said another. “They look like those golden soldiers from Xian, like grave markers, almost like raindrops, like the Roman armies.”
For me, it was as if a piece of formal music, a Bach invention, perhaps, had taken material form and was playing before my eyes, not my ears. “You can make up stories for every row,” one of us observed, and she was right.
As an almost full moon rose, we sat on the porch and sipped our wine, captivated by what lay before us.