Iconographies

At first they looked to be in trouble:
the car stopped alongside the road,

a variety of drivers or passengers
outside holding their phones up to the sun

descending behind the mountains.
I respect their urge to hold onto

that beauty but couldn’t stop
for it myself, took as much

of it in until the trees near the road
obscured it—at home and the last draw

of whiskey when the power’s out
all over town and I can’t go

out for more—in the dark
I am drawn to the multitudinous

variations of a theme that’s obsessed me
for years: the archangel Gabriel’s visitation

to Mary to announce her miraculous
conception of God made man.

The first I saw was Leonardo’s:
both Gabriel and Mary eaten up

by an immaculate suffusion
of robes, Byzantine stars

bursting atop their heads.
Her right hand pressing

the pages of a book
on an intricate marble table,

Mary moves back the arched
fingers of her left hand

to receive the angel’s
blessing—then a frolicking reel

of the motif and its transformations
—in one, the ghostly outline

of Gabriel floats down to wordless
Mary, arms crossed in an X

over her chest in Gustave Doré’s
engraving, a slighter X in Carlo

Crivelli’s The Annunciation
with St. Emidius but Mary

is still attending to her book,
an ultralight beam impregnating

her from heaven. Mathias Stom
has adorned Mary in a sky blue

robe and red dress by candlelight
looking up from her book,

the angel on the right, the angel
on the left, the angel with white

wings, the angel with gold wings,
the angel with birdlike wings

with black, orange, and yellow
feathers. Whatever ecstatic

wings bore the angel to her,
whatever simple dwelling

or temple or piazza or enclosed
garden of Madonna Lilies

(the angel is often holding
them but not this time)

that Mary finds herself within,
this is when the divine over-

shadows us. Do we look aside,
then, in a gesture of humility,

stop startled at this late hour
or become eager to return

to the more familiar
fancy in our book?

One would hope to be
as Mary in Lorenzo

Lotto’s Recanati Annunciation
—so taken aback we must

turn completely from
the heavenly interlocutor

and clap our hands
in prayer—but caught

by the painter in a moment
of pivoting away, kneeling,

palms facing out before
joining as the cat scurries

off and God watches
from a cloud in the window.

Stepping back to their cars,
what peculiar configuration

turned the passive to the creator?
What sun, what sky, what fields,

what mountains—how many
flowering lilies did they see

along the mountainside pass
before they pulled off

into the breakdown lane
and stopped to say, behold?

Reduced to the Numinous

I blew the dust from your name
I held a glass to your name
I brought a light to your name
I placed your name in fire
& it roared but did not burn away

I flashed the sign of your name
I traced whorls with your name
I pierced the mark of your name
I cast lots with your name
but could not tell first from last

I worried the earth with your name
I let the blood from your name
I sucked the salt from your name
I built an altar to your name
& placed a sacred font upon it

I could not abide that there was only your name
I held myself down in the waters of your name
I poured myself out in the abundance of your name
I lifted my head to ask are you here with me now
by saying your name again and again and again

Ben Pease is the author of the full-length poetry collection Chateau Wichman: A Blockbuster in Verse (Big Lucks Books), a poetry-infused Dungeons & Dragons adventure module called The Light of Mount Horrid (Ghost in the Forest Games), the hybrid illustrated edition Furniture in Space (factory hollow press), and a few chapbooks. His poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Poetry Northwest, jubilat, Biscuit Hill, and 7x7, among others. He is a co-founder of the Ruth Stone House, Communication Coordinator at Otter Creek Engineering, and book designer for various enterprises. He lives in Brandon, VT with his wife, Bianca Stone, and their daughter, Odette.