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The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo. |
From Part III: Michelangelo stalls on the scaffold to recall how he first saw the Pieta, complete, in the unquarried marble at Carrara.
"Someday, I'll carve a Venus, bunching
the warm breasts high, the silk legs closed,
the most perfect virgin, with everything
to give, and no desire.
O what if Heaven is as cold.
The things I love most wait hunched
in the white Carrara grove, never
where the workmen mutter. Like fish,
the statues scatter from the lines.
I hunt alone, away from the crews,
and the statues pull back, deep
in the thick of the mountain.
They hold still as the stone,
and some arch themselves
along the inner faults,
dreaming slowly
not to be found.