Madonna di Loreto
Cadnum, Michael
Madonna di Loreto after Caravaggio The pilgrims have found them at least, and kneel before their doorstep, staffs angling upward, their callused, bare feet dusty with journey. Half-lit by...
...Go, she would tell the travelerscome again some distant morning...
...Although he's already old enough to walk she dandles him, believing her pet names and private songs can still the world...
...She takes in the demise of his infancy with peaceful refusal...
...While her son, innocent of doubt, already awakens to a joy in strangers, their rough accents, their rapt eyes, and stirs to climb down from the breath-quick sky of his mother's arms...
...Michael Cadnum...
...Half-lit by sunset the Virgin observes the supplicants, but the Infant really sees them, and begins to reach, wants to stretch his hand to touch, while his mother already regards what is not present: the angel who foretold his birth, the chapters of passion to come...
Vol. 131 • December 2004 • No. 22
