Fra Angelico’s Adoration,
San Marco, Florence
Angelico has juxtaposed his bloody
Son of Man to the infant—
the blood spills his ropy veined
inner-arms where the tender flesh is pale
and the mica-flecked wall glitters
like the surface of the moon.
In this season and region the olive trees
are heavy with dark fruit; all one afternoon
I gathered them with my hands
to be crushed. You have to grasp
the bitter flesh-pits and drop them in a net.
Beyond the near-winter fields,
only the hour-bells carry over the gulf
from the high city to shadowed valley.
The monk who woke and slept
and filled his eyes with this bright
painting all his days, did he see the end
in the beginning? An arc, an arrow, a shape in nature?
Did its heart-tip burn the mark
like a black candle in dull noon?
My sight searches and searches,
as though to go to Him.
So many buried lamps. What shall I
take for a witness? Angelico’s blue?
Fruit breaking loose from a tree?
The guard’s heavy footfall on the stone floor?
Or the words he spoke
in a tongue I could not understand,
when I broke into song to sound the cell,
to hear the empty chamber answer.
Christine Perrin
From Bright Mirror, with permission from the author