What might that be — « traces of the sacred »?
A museum tries many replies, all valid, yet …
What of that which is not in the show — the beggars and buskers, the fancy cars and cheap shoes, tired workers on the Métro returning home, girls reading celebrity papers, smokers outside cafés, kids on bikes, a hint of moon in the night sky not yet dark?
What of July?
What of cancer?
What of Turkish sandwiches, the Dalai Lama, the Chinese ambassador, Rafael Nadal, fireworks, beer cans, ice cream at the beach?
What of the museum itself? What of the visitors?
Ginsberg chants, « Holy! Holy! Holy! »
Bodhidharma, when asked by the Emperor Wu what was the essential principle of this teaching he brought from India, replied: « Vast emptiness, nothing holy. »
This is it; it’s all and nothing.