Caravaggio: Saint John the Baptist, by Alarie Tennille

Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness, by Caravaggio (Italy), 1604-1605.

​Caravaggio: Saint John the Baptist

We know what will happen.
Skin this fair would
blister under Israel’s sun--
chiaroscuro, the light of purity
can’t hide in a dark world.
Salomé had not the power
to attract, nor the power
to resist so deep a passion.
Those eyes--
their gaze is lowered or
they’d pierce us--
just the way they were
intended to do.

Alarie Tennille

This poem was first published in A Golden Place.
​
Alarie Tennille was born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia, and graduated from the University of Virginia in the first class admitting women. She became fascinated by fine art at an early age, even though she had to go to the World Book Encyclopedia to find it. Today she visits museums everywhere she travels and spends time at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, where her husband is a volunteer guide. Alarie’s poetry book, Running Counterclockwise, contains many ekphrastic poems. Please visit her at alariepoet.com.