Selected poetry
Shadows
To the caregivers, in a time of pandemic
... believers ... brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that, at the least, the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them. — The Acts of the Apostles (5:12-14)
1. 'St. Peter Healing the Sick with His Shadow' by Masaccio
Only Masaccio,the painter who first used light to sculpt the human form, portrayed this story.
The disciple, Peter,walks through a Florentine street past three afflicted men,'the halt and the lame',
his shadow touching each in turn — so that one man has alreadyraised himself, stands straight,his hands in prayer-clasp,
the next, an old mansparsely clothed as an eremite, is halfway up,his arms crossed on his breast,
the third,who has lived an impossible life, leans forward over his stick-like legs, ready, with an awestruck look
to rise, any moment now,to his full, unknown height.Peter, his eyes bright with trance, feet bare on the stones, moves on.
Masaccio, a fierce, benign, wondrously gifted unlocker of sacred secrets, created this fresco, lit by
the Brancacci Chapel's great windowas he laboured, all-giving.Three years later, aged twenty-six,he would die in Rome. No details known.
2. Intensive care: COVID-19
In the sealed unit,among a paraphernalia of tubes thick as aortas or thin as veins, are those who tend minutely,
minute by minute,the laceratingly ill —in each bed, a human awareness pulsing inside a racked body
until the turning that signalsrecovery or death —a sheet stretched upwardor, feet brought slowly down to earth.
The carers, the medical warriors, have no time, no strength to fight neglect by powerful others:the tragic lack of ventilators,
and of masks, visors, gowns for the nurses, the doctors — some fated to lie in beds left by those they tended.
The shadows within this room, watery grey or tinged with blue, mere shadows of themselves, cling to walls, floor, ceiling,
but shift, quickenwhen carers draw near to read,as they can, the charts and screens, their patients' faces, vital signs.
If only, oh if only, such shadows could do the work of healing for us, transmit the manna of our care, reaching like an arm to comfort
or, in balance with the light, in company with it, createa deepened luminance —as of a starred twilight
offering its presence before darkness falls,or a midwinter dawn seeding itself from night —
liminal still,while slowly lifting towarda new day's flowering;the whole room held in peace.
Easter,