WordsOut poems by Godfrey Rust · sequence Postcards from Florence ← 5 of 5 · home

Angelico

The Deposition of Fra Angelico
is the painting I love. They pass  

Christ’s body down between them like a waterfall,
kindness in each expression—saints, apostles, martyrs,  

women and Florentine merchants—united
in art as never in life, defying 

time to keep them from this act
of corporate obedience. Might it not 

as well have happened just like this—the Spirit’s
glow in these anachronistic faces, the bell 

tolling over the cool cloister of San Marco
as this three-quarter-turned congregation stares out,  

pardoning our failures, reborn in this unlikely sacrifice,
brilliant with hope against a Tuscan sky?