Travel Reference
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Figure 12a: Fra Angelico
Annunciation
; San Marco, Florence
Mary at San Marco
How timidly she sits on that rude wooden stool,
this Mother of God,
Shy and tentative like one newly arrived at school
In some strange city,
Parents now left far behind.
Soon to be Queen of all Tuscany,
Majesty of the star-flecked vaults of heaven,
Yet now resident in quadrangular space
Bordered with black rebar
Threaded through the close press of columns.
How forbidding are the tall, sharpened spikes of this enclosed garden!
Outside these walls, luxuriant fields and verdant forests
Still can be seen, any time one wants, any time at all,
Through the gridwork of bars in the tiny window of her bare chamber.
No, but don't let her stand up,
This too large Alice,
With her lack-luster halo,
In this confined space:
There's barely room for her now.
Better that she stay seated,
In this humble posture,
Listening again, attentively,
For the quiet voice she thinks she may have heard,
Calling her by name.
The Dove,
in potentia
, hovers silently in the wings unseen,
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