Video: The poem read by the author as part of our live event series.
(Autobiography with Doves)
My visitations come
from herons, egrets,
hummingbirds, in
certain seasons: ram’s
horns, bitter herbs
and that winning
combination—citron,
willow, myrtle, palm—
contracted in oak-gall
ink on primed and
sanctioned parchment
in sacred, if much
disputed, words.
I thought the Holy Spirit
was a collar on God
the father’s robes as he
stood—sad, accusing—
over the dying Christ
in that chock-full showpiece,
Santa Maria Novella, my
first time in Florence,
December 1978, Masaccio
a name I’d never heard
and I was so enamored
of the teeming Ghirlandaio,
its faces like the faces
in the dream-inducing streets,
its birds, its clouds, its gilt-
brocaded gowns, its two
intriguing figures
(attributed to Ghirlandaio’s
wunderkind apprentice,
Michelangelo) turning
their backs to me
to stare over a wall
at something only
they and he can see,
I barely attended
to the gripping
triple spectacle
unfolding three-
quarters of a
nave away, waiting
for me to rise
to its ethereal
occasion, its respite
from importunate
detail, waiting, even,
for me to misconstrue
its sense entirely—
ridiculous, really,
the thing is called
La Trinità and anyone
can see that that’s a dove.
But what did I know
about the Holy Trinity?
its sole association
the name of a school
near the mostly Jewish
neighborhood where
I grew up, oblivious
to who was meant
by Father, who by Son,
and fearful at the sound
of Holy Ghost.
Even now, I only know
what Masaccio has
told me, aided by his
unassuming dove
and the hopeful
virtuosos who
put brush to still-
wet plaster, bent
on capturing
before it set
that first suspicion
of transfiguration
hanging on an angel’s
lightning utterance
or a sprinkling from
John’s—the spirit
descending from heaven
like a dove—surprisingly
unprepossessing bowl.
I had always imagined
it was Noah’s dove returned,
or the dove as beloved
in the clefts of the rock
(an allegory for God,
the rabbis say)
let me see your countenance,
let me hear your voice
and here he is emerging
from the secret places
of the stairs to purify
a deity’s unlikely
bulk or amplify
a bombshell
from an angel…
though sometimes
the dove stays
nearly secret,
dissolving—Fra
Lippo Lippi—in a dove-
gray loggia wall, or
disguised as another
line of cirrus cloud
in the sky above Piero’s
baptized Christ,
its gliding body
approached straight on,
head downward,
wings outspread—
But the dove’s
heralded with
fanfare in Piero’s
Annunciation,
trotted out in
quattrocento
neon: swooping
toward Mary
from just inside
the frame,
ushered in
and trailed
by beaten gold.
And there is no
dove where
Pontormo gets
involved, just
an inside glimpse
of the domestic,
its trompe l’oeil
so convincing, I
myself—intruder?
voyeur?—feel
like I’m a piece
of the tableau:
Mary,
hand on banister,
foot mid-step, swivels
to face backward
as she’s gliding
up the stairs, toward
a new and strangely
intimate imperative
reconfiguring the
far-flung syllables
of what remains
to her of her
own name
coming from
the other side of
an ugly polychrome
altar, added to this
chapel in the eighteenth
century—perhaps
covering over
the missing dove?
or was Pontormo’s
instinct just to let
the Holy Spirit
infiltrate his
universe invisibly?
or maybe it’s simply
I who cannot see?
In Leonardo’s
Annunciation,
is there a dove?
I certainly can’t
find one—but
Leonardo is famous
for hiding things,
his revelations coherent
only when reflected
in a glass and, even
then, inscrutable
with code, or
worse, as with
his masterwork,
sabotaged from
within, impermanence
a feature of their very
makeup: encrypted
in an undercoat of
luminous white lead
the promise
of certain dissolution.
Perhaps he was
suspicious of
the actual?
Intolerant of
its inherent
weaknesses? Or
was he merely trying
to counter the affront
of his own (to him
prodigious, however
inaccessible to us)
incapacitating
limitations?
unless it was
a matter of faith?
he didn’t believe?
But even Fra Angelico,
devout Dominican,
seems to have perfected
his divine Annunciation
without assistance
from any dove.
Still, halfway down
the hallway, above
his freshly baptized
Christ, the dove couldn’t
be more conspicuous,
encircled by a halo
of concentric clouds
arranged to channel
never-ending light:
the heavens’ makeshift cup
running over into Saint John’s
bowl, as ripple after ripple
upends the lake of sky
as if the dove were
skipping pebbles
with his wings
or does the dove
itself serve as pebble?
skipped by a, for once,
lighthearted God,
at this, perhaps
the only wholly
jubilant occasion
in his only child’s
only earthly life.
I mean, of course, before
the Resurrection.
Forgive me if I’m
getting this entirely
wrong. I’m just
trying to describe
what I can see,
or rather what I’ve
missed, or perhaps
have not seen yet,
or all of the above
in combination,
unless—who knows?
it’s been working
on me all along,
its proselytizing
deftly subliminal,
like the edgy
come-ons urban
legend claims
were strategically
concealed in
advertisements:
romance by a lake
or in a sports car
or a yacht and
the word cancer
secreted in
the smoke
encircling a just-
lit cigarette.
Though I grew up
on those commercials
and I never smoked.
Maybe we’re not so
impressionable.
Maybe we simply are
what we are. And
I—what can I tell
you?—remain a Jew,
born too soon after
the war, no matter
what I look at, what
I see. Some disquiet
can be difficult
to shake; paranoia’s
mother’s milk to me
and I can still call up
my childhood terror
at the spurting blood
from Jesus after Jesus
after Jesus: those dreaded
rooms in the museum
I could never race through
fast enough, always
catching sight of at least
one Jesus spurting arcs
of blood, caught in
tiny bowls by stoic
angels, unbearable
to a squeamish
child like me
and then, floating
around, that
alarming phrase.
Imagine the havoc
a Ghost might inflict
with the fanatic
dispensation of the Holy.
And where, exactly,
would this ghost be?
Maybe it was mixed
up with the spurting
blood, for which,
though murky on
precise details, I’d
heard accusations
hurled at me.
If only I had known
that it had wings,
to which, all my life,
I’ve been susceptible,
dreamily pouring
over my Golden Book
of Birds, memorizing
names and stunning
features, half of me
dubious I’d ever find
these creatures in
the flesh and half of me
forever on the lookout:
from the cardinals
my mother never
tired of pointing
out, clashing with
the mauve of our
of our azaleas,
to the hoopoe
I caught sight of
just the other
afternoon in
the ginestra-
perfumed woods
above Assisi,
overdressed
as usual and
showing off
his hard-won
if outlandish
frippery
and just now
there’s an egret
out the window
of my train,
preening in
the shallows
of Trasimeno,
entirely indifferent
to his passing
devotee, as
my lethargic
carriage hugs
his shore.
Maybe each one
is a holy spirit?
or maybe, once
again, I’ve entirely
missed the point,
off-kilter as I
am in the face
of holiness
as something
human beings
are meant to see,
which is why—
as soon as my
train arrives
in Florence—I
head for the façade
of Santo Spirito,
left empty now
half a millennium
though Brunelleschi
drafted a design,
its blank, blank
frontispiece an
oddball shape
fit for an ascetic’s
wedding cake
(a tiered lapsed triangle
with flourishes draped
as if to camouflage
its bungled edges)
or regalia for
an earthbound
fledgling angel,
with triple sets of
unavailing wings,
its high rose
window a plain
circle on the outside,
commandeering
as a Cyclops’ eye,
and its three forbidding
rectangles—the central
one immense—suggestive
more of barriers
than entrances
though I’ve come
through them
dozens of times.
It’s a miracle
of grace when you
walk in, a rare
Florence church
requiring no ticket
for admission, but
I, resolute, remain
outside, to let my
eyes adjust—after
weeks of masterpiece—
to the evenhanded
discipline of blankness
despite the doves
shot through with light
in the sacristy’s stained-
glass lunettes, the high-
glazed doves in terra cotta,
white on their medallions’
trademark blue, the meek,
leaden dove in the pietra
serena floor, most likely
hidden by a passing shoe.
I’m not inside. I’m
out here, staring and
staring at this vacant wall
the color of uninterrupted
parchment, gradually
yielding up its pale
expanse, as if it were
unrolling its own scroll
almost translucent in
the waning light, primed
until its surface mimics pearl
perhaps in preparation
for a pious scribe, who’ll
immerse his body in
the ritual bath, stir
his ink, sharpen his quill
and stay the emptiness
with thick black strokes
and a binding admixture
of miracle:
a universe from
utterance, a likeness
blessed, good and evil
dangling from a tree,
a dove returning
to solid land, solid
land emerging from
the sea, a voice
in flames at last
acknowledging itself
I will be what I will be
but I’m ahead of myself,
not ready for this yet,
unwilling to give up
this supple blankness
wide-open, burning,
immaculate, this infinite
façade of Santo Spirito,
indulging pilgrims, sinners,
random guests, gorging
us on everything we’ve
yearned to see, pledging
each petitioner a yes
yes to the dove,
yes to the Holy Spirit,
yes to their sublime apologists
yes to yet another deafening transcription
from the red-hot Hebrew alphabet,
yes to the possible,
the unattainable, the precise,
yes to the wholly inaccurate,
yes to grace, yes to vision,
but not yet, not quite yet.
Image: Florence, Santa Maria Novella. Abside (Capella Maggiore). Chapelle Tornabuoni. Fresques de Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494)
Jacqueline Osherow’s most recent book is My Lookalike at the Krishna Temple (LSU). She has received Guggenheim, NEA, and Ingram Merrill Fellowships and the Witter Bynner Prize and is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Utah.
