In Boston,
at the MFA,
the faith, love and hope
of the Della Robbia family art,
glazed terra cotta, one hundred
and fifty years of saints and
Madonnas with their Baby Jesus,
the colors, five centuries old,
glow like the warmth
of living skin.
Then, with directions, I
to the basement gallery of Olmec art
to confront the huge squat
crushing ugly boulder
goddess that is shown in
the museum guide and know
it is the weight and
threat of my mother
and find, instead,
a life-size jade priest mask, turned
by fire from green to gray,
delicate, deadly
attractive but not looming.
Not huge. Only maybe
pained. Seeming as much
victim as butcher, except, of course,
to the
one
to be
sacrificed.
In the kitchen,
she sang with Frank
Sinatra about a surrey
with fringe, and, in that
moment, she was the most
beautiful girl in the world.
Patrick T. Reardon
1.26.18
This poem was originally published in Requiem for David from Silver Birch Press in February, 2017.
Written by : Patrick T. Reardon
For more than three decades Patrick T. Reardon was an urban affairs writer, a feature writer, a columnist, and an editor for the Chicago Tribune. In 2000 he was one of a team of 50 staff members who won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. Now a freelance writer and poet, he has contributed chapters to several books and is the author of Faith Stripped to Its Essence. His website is https://patricktreardon.com/.