With the Iconoclast
With the Iconoclast
Who keeps the beggar company? Unrobed or not, the incline that her shoulders take to greet her neck is intimately known by me and spurs an image in my mind that gestures her totality. Yet the impressionistic strokes of fantasy cannot compare to nature’s work. If she would turn her face that I might see the truth, I’d say with the iconoclast these idols that my mind engraves defame what is ineffable, diminishing what they’d preserve. For none would trade in canvas, stone, or thoughts having received the flesh and felt the quickening of blood. So turn, if you would still be mine, and let me look upon Justine.
Some context for the poem above: This is (yet another) excerpt from the play I was working on at the end of last year. It is delivered to a woman named Justine. The beggar mentioned in the first line is a character in the play. Everything else should be self-explanatory.
Really beautiful! I like the way the poem equates mental pictures with physical ones. Looking forward to the play!
Just a comment on the illustration.
I wouldn't use actual icons like that if I were you.
Believers consider a genuine icon to be not only an image of the saint, but the presence of the saint herself. It is a direct encounter with a person who is already in eternity - an opening between the world of time and that of eternity.
When you interact with an icon, you interact with a person.