Pieta – Michaelangelo

My town has a plaster cast

made before the crazy man

took a hammer to the Christ

lying sensuously on

Mary’s big, broad lap.  He’s nude

except for a strip of cloth

she keeps staring at.  A Bride-

…Child-of-God, yet also Mother-

of-God:  she looks sixteen…

Rome’s sculpture is behind glass

now.  Vandals who have seen

sex instead of symbol pass

safely by, kept yards away. 

Here we still come close:  see! pray!

– Steve Shoemaker, host of Keepin’ the Faith, WILL, Urbana, Illinois.

Note: The cast of the Pieta is in the Spurlock Museum of World Cultures at the University of Illinois, Urbana.