Timothy Lavenz: Passion

Intervention by Bacco Artolini on ” Cristo in pietà e un angelo” Antonello da Messina ( 1476 circa)

Passion

Pilloried bleeders

on the stake of ultimate

reasons question their dying.

They cannot be helped

out of their body – lairs,

so they dwell in them

knowing them compost.

The look they cast

to the sky is unseeable,

so they recount a story

of unrepeatable light.

Their eyes they avert

weary of caring.

But, still, a symbol

emerges from need

of clarity. Attention

marries each hour,

follows its air into just memories.

When they cry —

that is the merriment,

seeing the other

cry too. The reason

holds, there

where it bears into you.