I turned the corner. At my approach,
Balzac, you rose before me like a ghost
of unquiet conscience—a slow,
up-poured eruption of volcanic force
arrested in the stillness of this place,
to stand as if blasted by God's eye of wrath
and weathered into desert stone
like Lot's wife at her turning back
toward the destruction of her city.
I stopped, astounded by
your gouged eyes staring forever
and your severed hands—sign
of the immortality and martyrdom
awarded by an implacable art
for having gazed too long at the obscene
spectacle of our stupidity.
—Thus the sentence. But on whom,
you or us, is the judgment come?
The answer, if there is one, lies
within the sunlight and torrential
silence that clothes you.
And in your keeping still
your tormented vigil
over this old French city of small ruins.
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Photo from www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/rodin/balzac.html
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