Sport 24: Summer 2000
The cage is a song in which the bird is sung
The cage is a song in which the bird is sung
Sweet bird, swift bird
on your hectic bough
falling from song to song
as far as the distant earth
the long arm of the sleeping
city laid beside
the sleeping sea. Oh
slow-footed one
on my kowhai, you are
my Messiaen, and those
once resplendent on my
cool, vacated lawn—
Scelsi, Byrd, Cage, Nancarrow,
Luigi Nono—
fare well, fly well unflappable
ones, beyond the long
loaves of clouds, the great
feathered sun.
‘For Victor Meertens’ was commissioned for the exhibition Experimental Budgerigar Workshop at the Sarjeant Art Gallery, Wanganui, in October 1999. The exhibition, by Australian artist Victor Meertens, featured a scale replica of the Sarjeant Gallery made out of tin and wire, and measuring approximately three metres across. A number of live budgerigars flew freely inside the structure during the two months of the show. Another aspect of Victor's workshop-project involved the construction of baking tins the shape of the Sarjeant which members of the community would take home and bake bread in. A roster of townsfolk insured there was always fresh bread in the gallery. ‘For Victor Meertens’ was read out at the exhibition opening on October 2, 1999.