What loves, takes away

If the nose of the pig in the market of Firenze

has lost its matte patina, and shines, brassy,

even in the half light; if the mosaic saint

on the tiles of the Basilica floor is half gone,

worn by the gravity of solid soles, the passing

of piety; if the arms of Venus have reentered

the rubble, taken by time, her perennial lover,

mutilating even the memory of beauty;

                                                                                                          and if

the mother, hiding with her child from

the death squads of brutality,

if she, trying to keep the child

quiet, to keep them from being found out,

holds her hand over his mouth, holds him

against her, tighter and tighter, until he stops

breathing;

                              if the restorer—trying to bring back

to perfection the masterpiece scarred by its

transit through time, wipes away

by mistake, the mysterious smile. . .

                                                                                                          if what

loves, and love is, takes away what it aims

to preserve,

                                 then here is the place to fall

silent, meaning well but in danger

of marring what we would praise, unable

to do more than wear down the marble

steps to the altar, smother the fire

we would keep from the wind’s extinction,

                                                                                                          or if, afraid

of our fear, we lift the lid from the embers, and send

abroad, into the parched night, a flight of sparks,

incendiary, dying to catch somewhere,

hungry for fuel, the past, its dry provision

tinder for brilliance and heat, prelude

to cold, and to ash. . .