On Day 671 of the daily poems we reach the last of our Buried Treasure – our poet Alwyn Marriage takes us to a baroque church in Piedmont, where, in the frescoes but hidden in the detail, are traces of rich colours.
Frescoes
In the convent church, Orta San Giulio, Italy
In search of solitude
I enter the baroque interior
packed with all the paraphernalia
of simple piety:
floating madonnas
magical saviours
and plentiful visual representations
of the invisible God.
Rather reluctantly I admire
the ornately painted ceiling,
as lovingly conceived
as any canvas or tapestry
stitched beside a cottage hearth.
High on a wall, among inferior frescoes,
I’m arrested by a martyrdom of Stephen:
a stone raised by a man with pert bare
buttocks, ready to add to the young
deacon’s suffering and death.
And I wonder whether from time to time
a novice nun secretly raises her eyes
from the psalter or breviary before her
to gaze at these upper walls
and reflect on that cheeky behind.
Candlelight flickers
over pious images, some
with essential features such as faces
partly obliterated; while
the much-maligned Mary Magdalen
makes eyes at her chaste saviour
from under her free-flowing
scarlet hair;
and the sufferings of a sexy
Saint Sebastian
are displayed in gory detail –
exotic flights of religious fantasy
rising up to roost above our heads,
all satisfying our age-old need
for martyrdom and miracles.
But hidden in the detail,
traces of rich colours can still be seen,
plain truths reflecting older, deeper faith:
maternal love, the loyalty of friendship,
kindness leading to self-sacrifice,
and courage in the face of death.
Alwyn Marriage