Aria

Not once have I wept over art
in the Louvre, Uffizi or Met.
Well, almost over van der Weyden’s
Descent in the Prado, Mary’s grief,
but that may have been indigestion
after Madrid’s tapas, the Museum of Ham.
A lithograph in Chelsea,
Kathe Kollwitz’s dead mother and child
splayed, stiff, discarded on the curb,
brought a single, quiet tear.

At the reception, the gallery on Water Street,
I am at first preoccupied with drawings,
paintings, prints, porcelain; delicate, curious
assemblages, diminutive Constructivism;
with wine, cheese and those gooey sweets
with marshmallows, coconut and caramel;
with the hot breath of claustrophobic
conversation. In a corner, a soprano,
hired for the evening, presses “play”
for her boom box accompaniment.
Unexpectedly, the press of gawkers hushed,
from this spare, pretty young woman an aria.

At my age, too cynical or circumspect,
on most days, I assume nothing
may move me so again, but with
her voice, sobs come suddenly,
exquisitely pure, crystalline tears.
All pretense and pettiness fall away.
Instantly, this moment is beauty.
I am Saint Teresa in Ecstasy,
her voice piercing me with divinity.
However skeptical my arrogant past,
this, at last this, must be God’s love.