Hamby, "Thinking of Galileo"

When, during a weekend in Venice while standing
    with the dark sky above the Grand Canal
exploding in arcs of color and light,

a man behind me begins to explain
    the chemical composition of the fireworks
and how potassium-something-ate and sulfur catalyze

to make the gold waterfall of stars cascading
    in the moon-drunk sky, I begin to understand why
the Inquisition tortured Galileo

and see how it might be a good thing for people
    to think the sun revolves around the earth.
You don’t have to know how anything works

to be bowled over by beauty,
    but with an attitude like mine we’d still be swimming
in a sea of smallpox and consumption,

not to mention plague, for these fireworks
    are in celebration of the Festival of the Redentore,
or Christ the Redeemer, whose church on the other side

of the canal was build after the great plague
    of 1575 to thank him for saving Venice,
though by that time 46,000 were dead,

and I suppose God had made his point if indeed he had one.
    The next morning, Sunday, we take the vaporetto
across the lagoon and walk along

the Fondamenta della Croce, littered
    with the tattered debris of spent rockets
and Roman candles, to visit the Church of the Redentore
   
by Palladio. The door is open for mass,
    and as I stand in the back, a miracle occurs:
after a year of what seems to be nearly futile study,

I am able to understand the Italian of the priest.
    He is saying how important it is
to live a virtuous life, to help one’s neighbors,

be good to our families, and when we err
    to confess our sins and take communion.
He is speaking words I know: vita, parlare, resurrezione.

Later my professor tells me the holy fathers
    speak slowly and use uncomplicated constructions
so that even the simple can understand Christ’s teachigns.

The simple: well, that’s me, as in one for whom
    even the most elementary transaction is difficult,
who must search for nouns the way a fisherman

throws his net into the wide sea, who must settle
    for the most humdrum verbs: I am, I have, I go, I speak,
and I see nothing is simple, even my desire to strangle

the man behind me or tell him that some things
    shouldn’t be explained, even though they can be,
because most of the time it’s as if we are wandering

lost in a desert, famished, delirious,
    set upon by wild lions, our minds blank with fear,
starving for a crumb, any morsel of light.



Barbara Hamby

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