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About This Poem
Angel in the Stone
Coral life forms in myriad swarms
Feast in the Cambrian chyme
Dividing their cells and forming their shells
To end on the sea floor as lime
Tectonic churning and magma upturning
Renders marble whiter than bone
The marble is mined, but the cutters are blind
To the angel confined in the stone
A young sculptor arose, with a bend in his nose
And a transcendent creative spark
Charged with ambition to fulfill a commission
An angel for St. Dominc's Ark
An artist sublime who will live for all time
His genius is to see things not shown
For an angel to achieve he first has to perceive
Its splendor enclosed in the stone
At dawning's first glow he surveys the tableau
Of the blocks the stone cutters supplied
In some he sees dreams of potential themes
But only one traps an angel inside
“A beautiful thing never gives so much pain
As does failing to hear it and see it.”
The block that he chose was rejected by those
Who then lied and claimed to foresee it
With talent and skill he falls to with a will
Surrounded by rubble and relic
His method you see, for the angel to free
Is to remove all the bits not angelic
Michelangelo’s art for all time stands apart
But there's something further to heed
For there's a bit more to the fine metaphor
In the tale of the angel he freed
“A beautiful thing never gives so much pain
As does failing to hear it and see it.”
For in all our insides a bright angel abides
And is just waiting for something to free it
To remove all the parts which harden our hearts
And chip out the darkness and pride
To smooth the rough patches and polish the scratches
And unshackle the angel inside
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