WordsOut poems by Godfrey Rust · sequence Postcards from Florence ← 3 of 5 → · home

Donatello

Brunelleschi’s Dome was built, like Babel,
to reach a little nearer towards God  

than the one in neighbouring Siena.
Donatello’s pulpits (two of them? in one church?) stand 

like Martians from Wells’ War of the Worlds. Pride
and market forces fuelled the Renaissance, and yet 

regard the scale of their technology:
their patience hushes the click of the mouse.  

Far from the stink of leather in the streets,
and the pavement artists chalking out the Masters 

—one photo, one money!—we browse
Botticelli on CD-ROM and stroll 

through a virtual Uffizi, mortals tinkering
with the colours of divinity on our infinite palette of pixels.