Pietà

The cold marble is caressed with fiery grace;
In sculpted textures of figurative skin.
She holds the body; lost in grief's solemn place.
She cradles Him as though he was a child still.
And calmly surveys His bruised and mortal flesh
In a cool ocean of softly folded garments;
Cradles this broken figure transformed in death
Who will inspire Art's most blessed moments.
One whom she bore in the ragged light of faith;
Who is the sacrificial, bloodied fulcrum
Of Creation's sacred fulfilment...some say;
Not a glittering god of the moon or sun.
Her repose dissolves the driving, brutal nails
Of suffering in this wayward, wanton world;
Where the howling beast not the angel prevails;
Where the primordial Word is seldom heard.
Yet in the redemption of diurnal time,
The crude particular courts the Eternal,
And a profusion of new symbols and signs
Are prepared to transcend the all too human.