Venice
Out of the darkness, light. Pentecost.
Tongues of painstaking fire.
More telling than the "big bang"
and the complex world in which we live.
Beauty in bronze. Still life
unfazed by time and the rising tide.
Balm for the soul.
Florence
I wouldn't want to live there.
It felt like indigestion.
Too much beauty in too small a space;
and the multitude, not knowing which way to turn.
Thank God for the Ponte Vecchio, San Marco, and Fra Angellico.
For light, air, commerce, and a quiet devotion
to faith and love.
And for the cash machine, that at intervals
brought manna from England.
Sienna
What a scandal it must have been
those Dominican's fighting over her,
so that her head is in once place
and her torso in another.
Objects of veneration. An affront to decency.
And what a shame that her kitchen and bedroom are frescoed.
Much better to see pots and pans and know that they were hers.
But her spirit lives in the durable.
In the muted tints that spring in to life in the sunshine.
And in the cathedral, whose inner beauty
surpasses that of Florence.
Rome
I've gone off Italian women young and middle aged
who got up to give me their seat.
I'm only sixty-four.
And I have harsh words for the Sistine Chapel:
Overrated. Overstuffed. And at twelve Euros.
And for the vein and foolish ushers, clapping their hands
and shushing the multitude, who unsuspecting, take up the call.
There are stunningly beautiful temples in the suburbs.
Someone said, that Christ is disproportionate to the rest of the Pieta.
Strange. I always thought that Mary's shoulders were too broad.
A masterpiece!
Perhaps on "the last day," the Almighty will give it the final touch:
Arteries.
__________
© Cormac McCloskey
Venice: The interior of St. Marks Cathedral. Florence: The area between the Cathedral and the Baptistery. Sienna: St. Catherine of Sienna. Rome: The Sistine Chapel. "Overrated and overstuffed"? As it was presented to the public, crowded and dark. And if it is the acclaimed masterpiece that it is supposed to be, why should people who have travelled across the world to see it, be reduced to silence. Especially when the chapel is not being used for religious ceremonies. "Temples": Churches. Some of which were modelled on the original Roman temples.
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