wordsout by godfrey rust
Postcards from Florence <
5
of 5
Angelico
The
Deposition
of Fra Angelico
is the painting I love. They pass
Christ’s
body down between them like a waterfall,
kindness in each expression—saints, apostles, martyrs,
women
and Florentine merchants—united
in art as never in life, defying
time
to keep them from this act
of corporate obedience. Might it not
as
well have happened just like this—the Spirit’s
glow in these anachronistic faces, the bell
tolling
over the cool cloister of San Marco
as this three-quarter-turned congregation stares out,
pardoning
our failures, reborn in this unlikely sacrifice,
brilliant with hope against a Tuscan sky?
Last of five poems in the sequence Postcards from Florence.
© Godfrey Rust 1996, godfrey@wordsout.co.uk. See here for permissions.
.