What could this mother say to
even touch the sorrow
of this loss?
Like sacred stone against satin-
Who better knows the heavy cost?
Like a luce spezzata,
An eternal love released //
At the foot of the cross.
His broken body
pressed against
her own broken heart // beat
This young woman who
carried the light of
the world in her womb,
Then she held that dimmed
light in her grieving hands,
like a million shattered stars-
with a hidden moon.
She sees a world too lost
in deepening darkness
to comprehend-
the weight on her shoulders,
or even try to understand-
The very essence of Mary
softening the world’s grief-
As the earth spun on its axis-
And His light
splintered // crashing //
into our night sky
come un coro di angeli.
*
*
I wrote this while reflecting on Michelangelo’s Pieta.
Gretchen Leary (McIntire) 