C. Dale Young
Even the Master who possesses an indisputable style
can be troubled by doubt and pride
in the same moment; Buonarotti, so enraged
that a few people who had seen the Pietá
believed it had been sculpted by someone else,
returned to the sculpture to claim it as his own:
MICHAELAGELUS BONAROTUS FLORENTIN FACIEBA
chiseled on the sash across the Virgin’s chest.
None of his other sculptures makes such an announcement.
Standing in front of the statue, shielded now
by bullet-proof glass, one envisions the man
with a pick-axe attacking it screaming “I am
the Christ, and I am alive!” So many of us
have these odd ideas in our heads.
We say men like this have schizophrenia
because we aren’t sure what else to say.
Much of this world remains hidden, and
all the science in the world cannot illuminate
every dark corner, much less the corners of the mind.
I tuck the wings along my spine. I wear two shirts. I
keep the wings hidden. We accept that things must be so,
that somewhere in the back of the statue a piece of marble
is missing (the Virgin’s nose had to be reconstructed).
We accept. And we doubt. And we hide things.
After thousands of years, not much has changed.