The Met #2

Although I have already posted about the Met, there was so much to do and see that I have to talk about it again. In the African Artifacts exhibition there was a tapestry that shined on the wall, made out of smashed up bottle caps and other metal refuse. Its colors transformed from red to gold to little dots of blue and black and green. It didn’t hang like a rug on a wall, but rather a piece of armor, contorted and rigid. In the Oceania room, a ginormous boat floats on the ceiling, layered tiles of different colors, sliding against the skylights. In the Egyptian exhibit, there is a sphinx and remnants of an ancient building, warning mortals from entering. A moat surrounds the sandstone blocks. The water is shimmering and black. The ripples from the filter never quite make it to the middle. It is the pit, bottomless and suffocating that marks the boundary between the living and the dead, the Nile inside an otherwise light room. The sun shining in through the wall of glass can’t push into the water, can’t even make a dent. The only dots of color under the water’s surface are the pennies glinting and flashing. They are the holes poked through black construction paper replicating stars.