With
a Sliver of Marble from
Old men beneath the mountain
Stand in its shadow, unemployed.
They do not talk much about
Michelangelo.
They know
A man's hand worked the face.
You are out of work
At ten o'clock in the morning
At Carrara, a working town
North of Florence, where
The holiest human face
Among all Christ's mothers
Knew very well it dreamed:
Why did I wake? Whose
Face is this, weeping
Suddenly awake out of my coarse
And distant body
Behind Carrara that only
A lonely God made?
And a lonely man there
Wept for the faces of the prisoners in
Even he could not finish.
Even he
Could not live long enough.
James Wright
To A Blossoming Pear Tree (1977)
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