A MORAL VICTORY IS STILL A DEFEAT
It was late in the year and late in the day,
And in Sant’Agnese in Agone
The light was not quite right.
So late in the year, so late in the day,
It should have been a watery amber
Dripping through that church’s high dome
Windows. Instead, it was a smoldered orange,
Almost embered,
And it rose from the floor
In front of the main altar, a kind of shimmer
That made of Guidi’s Holy Family an inferior mirage.
That rose someone left on the floor
In front of the main altar,
Was that where the light was coming from?
Was it coming from those candles burning
On the main altar?
No—, the light was shining
From the shrine, from the skull of the saint
Herself! No wonder it was winter,
The weak sun shining,
Everywhere but there!
The world grown cold and growing dark.
It was late in the year and late in the day.
Everywhere but there—
