Botticelli: The Lamentation over the Dead Christ
Dismiss the body bent so awkwardly
across his mother's lap: there's no god in it.
Dismiss the saint holding the nails, the thorns.
Remember only the Marys: Salome,
Cleophas, Magdalen -
and Mary, fainting virgin, her body
distended, bulging, because she suffers more
than anyone can grieve unless she loosen
her human shape and become impossible.
~~~~~~
How Beautiful the Beloved, Gregory Orr
The poem he's writing is a list
Of things he suddenly knows
Are precious.
He doesn't know
Where he's going - old man
At the start of a long, cold ride.
The list he recites is also long.
As long as he keeps making that list,
He's traveling towards the beloved.
~~~~~~~
This house, it's a thin place,
I think. The wind outside
might be the wind that summons
the faraway and brings, as near
as breath, the spirit of the dead
watching.
Who are you?
I ask the acres of emptiness
into which everything is gathered
and is -
turning the question
at last towards my own heart,
blind and stupefied - Who?
~~Margaret Gibson
No comments:
Post a Comment