Between the Cherubim
Just who dreamed up
these chubby little charmers
with no clothes on?
Their wings seem so inadequate
for flying. Certainly
their full-grown angels must despair
that they will ever be of use to them.
So there they are, the lighter touch
to make the saints seem
more approachable--
make glad their eyes and steer their hearts
...let us know the higher realms
do laugh, despite an ever-present
dour necessity of sending sinners,
somber saints and seraphic sojourners
to their proper rooms "up there."
All this, one might suppose,
a matter of the checks and balances
the angelic air we have created
certainly demands,
for all the here below could never
be more fair.
Their talented creators allow them
only smiles; they never speak
inside their gaudy frames of gold,
but one could not presume
they are newborn, for they
adorn the central characters
with such a chubby grace
that heavenly halos drift
among them and it is not unreasonable
to expect that one of them might be
impetuous enough to stretch his stubby arms
and catch a filmy orb
as it floats by.
There's the answer. They're
a natural for Rubens and his
fleshy friends who took delight
in finding something common
in the converse of their holy earth,
and dualistic heaven, the one
the Renaissance saw clearly,
while post-modern man may not.
~
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