THE BARGELLO

by Michael Salcman

It’s not what they meant, let me tell you,

when they set up Donatello among the wild beasts

gave him a cold chisel, a gouge

and a rasp to chew the marble away

from the hollow in the block,

thick tools to chase the hairs in his David

from the veins in ten tons of rock,

dragged by mules and men from a quarry

far away from Florence.

They brought it to him on rollers,

like a tomb for a pharaoh—see

what you can do with this—and he began

to chip away the stone in Goliath's forehead

and polish it brown over many months

until it stood out in the open, proud

like a third eye swollen and bruised

or a great emerald in the mind.

No, it’s not what they wanted

but it’s what they got;

and they built a museum to house it and contain

this mighty eructation of tearing away.