Day: April 30, 2021

The Castle West of the Moon has two marble sculptures:
One is Ecstasy of Saint Teresa and the other Laocoon,
The works of Art in the image of Perfect Form
As though the makers of such Art had seen it in a dream;

The divine ecstasy swept chaste Teresa in fiery passion
Tearing a thin veil of hidden desire beneath a cloak of faith
As Cupid’s Arrow of Desire thrust her heart in and out
And teased her with a recalcitrant paroxysm of ecstasy;
The eyes half-cast to the exhilaration of flowing streams
Of wanting, asking, giving, wanting it all in growing rapture
As the lips opened to the truth of the sensation she had denied.
How incredible Teresa’s devotion to God was wreathed in glory!

Whereby Laocoon, the Trojan priest of Neptune, stood in agony
Frozen in marble ice as the Serpents coiling his ribs and thighs
Towering in their divine glory that the gods bestowed upon the beasts
And his two young sons coming to aide in filial haste in pitiful vain
Watched their righteous father perished in punishment for the truth
Against his audacious enemies for Helen treading upon his beloved Troy.
Twice round their bodies the Serpents’ long and winding volumes rolled,
Twice round their breaths the Serpents’ insidious and portent venoms gushed,
The Father and Sons dissolved into one great monument of struggles for life
As the Serpents wreathed them with their mighty power in triumph.

The Queen of the Castle looked at the marvelous wonders of Art
In a surge of indomitable compassion for Laocoon and his Sons
For the painful death was beyond the reason of justice and sense
Even though it mattered gods, and gods and God were selfish always,
Whereby Teresa’s Ecstasy was deliciously dreamy in a sweet delirium
Glistening like dewdrops reflecting a rainbow on the gossamer cobweb.