Pieta II

 PIETA II

Snow, gleaming brightly in the sun,

                Tops the peaks

                And covers the slopes

Of the mountains beyond Ferrara.

                **********

But it is not snow.

                It is marble,

                White and immaculate,

Pure enough for Michelangelo's Pieta.

                **********

But not his later one,

                The one he carved in old age.

                There was a blemish.

So he smashed it in anger.

                **********

Or, perhaps not a blemish.

                Perhaps it was his age.

                Or perhaps it was his vision,

No longer pure, no longer immaculate.