Cosmas and Damian
After “The Martyrdom of Saints Cosmas and Damian” by Fra Angelico

“Things are called beautiful when they are brightly colored.” —Aquinas

If not this monk's painting, then there are no marvels.
A shoulder's width of wood, powdered lapis and egg

through five centuries—what his eyes gathered of light,
what his heart beat it to, what his hand made

with the least of tools. No marvels but the elements
and we use them right to extend ourselves.

That our hands are in it, healing hands, lover's hands,
that we spend ourselves for nothing

like the martyrs in the picture: landscape like a shroud
over something terrible, a circle of insurmountable clouds.

In the late light with its perfect witness, one of the brothers
in the road on his knees still, tall as a pike

or a poplar though his head rolls in the wild mustard,
and up from his neck that thick jet of blood,

blind but alive still,
beat, beat on.

—Brian Collins

Brian Collins is the author of The Rath (Solo Press).