BODY AND SOUL AT THE MET

 

 

                        It takes a pagan head to make flesh speak,

                                    to mold or paint the thought itself:

                        as “Mourning Woman,” carve the shape of grief.

                                    And this “Etruscan Mars” himself

                                    is framed as weaponry propelled

                        by his own warrior stance.  Now see unbridled

                                    horse and naked rider meld

                        to form a newborn thing, the “Horseman” of its title.

 

            These lifeless wooden virgins, though, are idle,

                        posed with old-young babes against a ground

                        cluttered with symbols: orthodox recitals

                        of the doctrine of the soul unbound.

 

                        So at the thought of death, we prise the mind

            from works in clay mortality has signed.