The Sand Hill Review               http://www.sandhillreview.org 2009

The Symbol of St. Luke

detail from mosaics in the Mausoleo di Galla Placidia, Ravenna

These bursts could be yellow water lilies

crowding a great lake this winged bull swims in,

for its body has vanished, flanks and hooves

into the crumpled waves of turquoise and carnelian

strumming its chest. And its one black pupil

ringed with white stares out from the socket

where someone's fingers clinked each ivory tile

into place with a glue of rabbit skin and bone.

Was he exhausted, dizzy from so many hours

locked on that scaffold?

Or did he set the lapis squares

in a blissful ribbon of meditation,

his own hands creating sky and sea?

He frees the beast of burden to leave off its yoke

and wade into the cool river, floating.

Long after its maker is dead and forgotten,

its great feathered wings sweep up

into the gold petaled stars.

Does he know himself at the crux

of the universe, the invisible

point where the lines cross, where the shards

of what has been riven are made whole?

Ellen Bass