“The Madonna is Besieged by Silk Moths”

Collage on paper

All rights reserved.

“Mother to Christ, at a loss:
– Are you my God or son?
You’re nailed onto the cross.
Tell me how to go on?

How can I go, having not
understood, grasped, derived:
are you my son or God?
That is, dead or alive?

He, in turn, explained:
– Dead or alive, this time,
woman, it’s all the same.
Son or God, I am thine.”

– from “Nature Morte” by Joseph Brodsky