My First Glimpse at Michaelangelo's David

A college student whose
pedagogy consisted of
lacquered images, fine print
thrust from the abstract realm
where imitation is flattery and
a carbon copy satiates intrigue
traveling to the nexus where
pictorial images merge with
the tangible essence of being,
hastily sketched caricature
photocopied in my mind
morphs into a full blown portrait.
Michaelangelo's David chiseled
on a megalithic frame with bulging
sinews, a seismic gradient bursting
at the seams. The shock waves
ripple to my core as the nascent
image unfolds. Up to that moment,

 
the only specimen that I had carbon
dated was my grandfather. His
visage that of an archived manuscript,
font faded, parchment crumpled,
eyes receding into their dark orbital
spheres, arms dangling with no purpose,
arthritic fingers shorn of compass
points, legs whose ambulatory function
permitted only baby steps, cartridge
without firing mechanism, all
resolve buried, utility masked

There blooming before my
dazed eyes a colossus, relic
gracefully aging with time
surveying the hominid blips,
shadows sharing only space,
perched on a contrapposto
formulaic pattern etched
on his bionic figure,
lines perfectly grafted on a grid,
tangents neatly spliced,
geometric curves
forming perfect arcs.
No elevator shoes to prop
up dated marble bust, still
the embedded joints heaved
no sigh. Spanning the gallery
with distended limbs,
buff arms, flexed biceps,
legs, steel beams supporting
a tower, one a ballast in repose,
the other ready to lurch

 No teleprompter to cue
Steady determined glare
his remittance.