Full of Elegance and Truth:
Fra Angelico’s Annunciation
in the Prado
An Annunciation poem
[Look at the painting first? In case you don’t already know, Mary is always dressed in red (because of Christ’s Passion) and blue (to represent Heaven.]
Her garment isn’t red but is the pink
Of subtlety—elusive grace. Her robe
Is not celestial blue but on the brink
Of solemn shadows, darkness that our globe
Encounters as it sails through ruthless space.
Her peasant dress does not have angel gold.
One slit reveals a skirt, a blueish trace
Of heaven, and his robe is lined with bold
Silk, yellow as the chords of cherub choirs.
Yet certainly the pink on Mary’s cheek
Could not have been more lovely. Life aspires
To beauty of that order at its peak.
The bowed archangel is without compare
With folded pleats and wrists and holy hair.