Sculptor

To his house the bodiless Come to barter endlessly Vision, wisdom, for bodies Palpable as his, and weighty. Hands moving move priestlier Than priest's hands, invoke no vain Images of light and air But sure stations in bronze, wood, stone. Obdurate, in dense-grained wood, A bald angel blocks and shapes The flimsy light; arms folded Watches his cumbrous world eclipse Inane worlds of wind and cloud. Bronze dead dominate the floor, Resistive, ruddy-bodied, Dwarfing us. Our bodies flicker Toward extinction in those eyes Which, without him, were beggared Of place, time, and their bodies. Emulous spirits make discord, Try entry, enter nightmares Until his chisel bequeaths Them life livelier than ours, A solider repose than death's.