Caravaggio, Rest on the Flight into Egypt, 1597, Doria Pamphilj Gallery, Rome
What Love Makes
Joseph, the only human awake, his hands
all work-chaffed, lifts an ache called music,
longs, while weary eyes lock on a heaven
that’s open without knocking, that plies the bow
and plays as fragrance plays. Beguiled, his hair
and the donkey cheek unite, he’s dazed by need
and gazing, as mother and child embrace, lose
their bones in sleep. Here’s the moment
the artist could not resist. Joseph’s feet, curled
like sleeping kittens next to the angel’s ballet
pose, tell of the cost and dearness of surrender—
even its laugh. Yes, laugh, you serious ones: see
the angel’s hair: an up-do that hasn’t quite landed,
he’s just come, his molecules barely assembled,
strategic scarf scarcely there.
See what love does to the bodies it requires,
how it cups the unknown
in its chalice.
Johanna Caton, O.S.B, is a Benedictine nun of Minster Abbey, in Kent, England. Her poems have appeared in The Christian Century, St Austin Review, Ekphrastic Review, Amethyst Review, One Art, Today’s American Catholic, Fathom, Fare Forward, Windhover, The Catholic Poetry Room, and other publications. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee.
Amethyst Review 