sculpture

i made a simple wooden cross
blonde clean and facile
with visions of carving a story
suited to God
a foot-high, half-inch thick

and yet as simple as this tribute might seem
it became no less than projecting my soul
writing, in the end, with dried ink at the well
tasked to create something worthy of the symbol
from an unworthy font

I etched this cross a thousand ways in the folds of my mind
envisioning each crevice
before ever heaving mallet and chisel to
or even lifting my sullen weight toward it

it was as though i had to see millions
within the one
each time i might bear down on the wood
the hardness at hand gave way
to myriad eyes or thriving waters
or fields of scattering offspring
bursting vines driving forth through
the very grain

life's sheer will, it seemed, might spring
from this shattered idea
this plain golden crucifix

and, as usual, hacking up the flesh of it
i made something to abandon
not revere
faring only slightly better on the human details
finer points, as though pecadillos
tapped into skin
toward a greater finale