It’s surfacing from farther down
but slowly—so slowly that
it seems no longer rising
but stalled.
It’s like the magic
of sleep when dreams assemble
on their own until they’re whole.
Or when a rose becomes
a rose from bud to blossom
overnight.
Or how a photograph—
developing—becomes itself
in glossy black and white
before our eyes.
Where are
the words that say that life’s
what’s brought to light not by
but through us?
If we
are praised for that, it’s more
than we deserve.
This may
explain why Michelangelo signed
none of his sculptures but
the Pieta.
He did that only
as an afterthought to show
that he, not Gobbo Solari
of Milan, had made it.
Michel
Angelus Bonoratus Florent
Faciebat appears on the sash
of the Virgin.
Carved in marble
from Carrara, that made the Pieta
less tributary to the grief
of Christ’s mother than openly
the work of no one else
but Michelangelo!
Of Florence!
Later he regretted having done it
and blamed it all on vanity.
By then it was too late.