the ephesus museum was dry and we only toured the gladiator exhibit and its matter of fact statement that, "stadium and circus, in no other circumstances (other than sex) can emotions _soar to such heights." but what about chocolate?
marble sculptures of bulls wearing wreaths that made me think the old civilizations had as little sense of what to do with death as we do. reconstructed skeletons from a gladiator cemetary detailing injuries to elbow, jaw, wrist, and with diagrams showing with red arrows how each one died: one executed by a blade under the back of the skull, one sliced under the shoulder blade, one stuck with a four-point spear through the femur -- terrible way to die, and the walls of the exhibit painted red.
lunch in selcuk under the ruins of an old aquaduct atop which storks return every year to build their nests, big wide swaths of swoop and backbending knees, big black eyes and long beaks.
we followed the aquaduct up to the basilica of saint john, built in selcuk because saint john brought the virgin mary to ephesus after the death of christ. forgot my camera! made me realize i have fallen a little out of practice finding the exact truth of a scene, such as how the walls of the baptistry alone were intact, red brick and red mortar, and the domes of course fallen, but how the foundations and the columns allowed you to feel the math wrapping the cupola up over your head, or how the tourists kept interrupting the muscled black cat intently waiting by little burrows, not moving a muscle, eyes down, or how the walls were made of even mud bricks with a layer of irregular stones at shoulder height and how every now and one of the irregular stones would be a broken piece of sculpture, vines or leaves or fruits, as if they broke up imperfect sculpted pieces to use elsewhere in construction, or how swallows swooped through the standing colums of the basilica tracing through the air like a conductor's expressive left hand under the baton, or how random green and colour choked the cracked terracotta wine jugs, or how the snake plants were so big and meaty they had to be pruned with a scythe, or how astrid kerr drew me through the weeds to see a persimmon(?) tree using just her index finger and saying, "come."
then walking back down as a stork flew up the hill high overhead, nest branches in its mouth, back down to ephesus for pickup.
