Early morning musings. These callow lamentations
speak my piece. I posed for oddity. A freak creation
left undone, buried uncut in solid rock. Still, I feel.
I think. And I rage as I bend beneath the scourge
of the ignoble globe my shoulders are bound to bear.
No line of defense disturbs the contradictions I cast as sacrifice
of a master’s mold. I model a prime study in suspense,
while nearby robust Moses frowns, fulsome muscularity flexed,
harsh mien and all. For all his strained severity
he is still ineffectual as leader of homeless clans.
The bare David rises in stature to peerless height in the rotunda at the key
of this triumphal hall. His insouciant bearing is simply overbearing.
He preens and struts up there, all bounds of decorum abandoned,
vaunting lordly privilege. The thumbs-on-the-scale beloved,
finished if unabashed by self-love, flaunts immodesty larger than life.
And elsewhere hallowed in some other lamentation, behold,
our siblings in stone: the Virgin with lifeless Son.
Awkwardly sprawled. Steeped in mourning.
Polished for adoration of sorrow sanctified
by the poor man’s lot. So cast for pity. So begging love.
They look on, intense, though they have all it takes and need no more.
For them, a master scraped fingertips raw. His touch, labored in love,
in agony, glows in their contentment. Grace beatifies the aura
around them. Clean arcs curve gently round every line to define
beauty by the care and symmetry creation lovingly plies.
No random accident or knowing spite deformed the realization
of these masterworks. No hollows depress the surfaces
as if an errant thumb had pressed too hard on clay still moist.
No aberrant gaps or lumps or flatness rendered where the artist,
through mischief or neglect, pared too much or not enough.
That wholesome finish is purposely endowed,
not affected. Rather honed by hand for them alone
and delivered to them alone by a caring hand. All that pride
by sight and syllable conceives articulates from within them.
All that says in one breath: This is fine.