Michael Curtis
Music of the Spheres
Were her rainbow wings woven at school
shuttled to and fro across tessellated card
stringing tensions of multicoloured wool?
She kneels between them, three each side
circled by apportioned adoration
odd one out from couplets of attitude
that hold thumbs and fingertips as one
or cross across the heart, or calm the censer.
She's smuggled in the knee-high organ
she shared with her dolls and miniatures
when angels had less to fit in
before extra duties brought her here
to witness the coronation of the virgin
among adoring saints stage left and right
restored to glory, Benedict and Stephen,
Peter, John, Dominic, wearing white
egg tempera on poplar, raising books
of prophecy to the light.
She doesn't care, doesn't even look
like the rest, but gently spans the chord of C
with her left hand and covertly crooks
her right round the tiny bellows we barely see
to squeeze sound to life and steal
an unseen slight transporting beauty.
Page(s) 33
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