Getting Some Culture

This morning early, after yesterday having seen
the Renoir poster child, Matisse and Degas, et al,
I wonder what has transpired.

Yes, I was spoken to, I felt that I was in the company
of masters. I had leaned in close to look for brush
strokes and spatula marks.

The museum concept - bringing people to move in
uniform order before the mounted works, not lemmings
off the edge, but souls in wonder,

has me wondering. All that money, all that praise,
all that cultural awe. Am I supposed to have taken away
a deeper humanity? Is it that

artists of past centuries are the best historians because
they convey a sense of blood coursing through the veins
of their subjects? I was with them,

sensing their flirtations and tipsy joys, and melancholy.
I was of their time, capable of adjusting their clothing,
or kissing a cheek.

The hordes of uniformed school children who trooped
through in line, looking more at the people looking than

at the paintings, one presumes
by just being there and not doing any damage, something
will have rubbed off. Perhaps education is a hope swimming

in exposure. Of course their
beautiful little faces competed with the paintings to some of the
hopefuls there who came to glean the past artistically captured. Am

I better because of yesterday? Probably.