February 2: Christmas Poem, "Madonna and Christ Child by Fra Angelico," Voting

Okay, I know most of you have stopped celebrating Christmas.  My tree is still up.  My outside Christmas lights still blaze every night.  I listen to Christmas music and podcasts every day.  That's just me.

So, today, I have a sort-of Christmas poem for you all.

Madonna and Christ Child by
Fra Angelico

by:  Martin Achatz

This December, I receive
Her on a Christmas card,
A woman holding a child white as bone.
She stares at me, eyes half-open,
As she stared at Angelico six centuries ago,
Her round face smooth and vacant,
The Mediterranean on a windless night.
Her neck, slender as a piano key,
Gleams against the blue waves of her robe.
Angelico must have filled thw alls of his cell
With charcoal studies of this woman's hands,
Her impossibly long fingers,
With his brushes, coaxed her lips to bloom rose,
Like a Florence sunrise.  At matins,
He listed to doves wake
In the church eaves, slap cold night from their wings,
At vespers, tasted the grit of bread in his teeth,
Coarse and dark as crow song,
All the while thinking of her cheeks
Flushed by the work of his hands.
Maybe that is why the child looks
Almost like a man as he presses
His face to hers,
Curls his hand on her deep collar.
On Christmas Eve, Angelico closed his eyes,
Dreamed the next painted instant when
The man-child turns his lips
To her neck, dips his fingers
Even deeper on her collar,
Finds the pulse in her breast,
The rhythm of her skin.
She opens like the heavens, and his body sings
Ave to her blazing star.

Please vote for Saint Marty (Marty Achatz) for 2019/202 Poet Laureate of the U. P. at the link below:

Poet Laureate of the U. P. Voting