Gratia Plena, by Anne Canright

Gratia Plena
 
after Mario Giacomelli
 
They appear in the village in twos and threes,
cassocked ravens in shiny black shoes
bearing armloads of bread,
bottles of Chianti encased in straw.
 
Papa hisses us to the opposite curb,
the burlap bag with its tomatoes, onions, and meat for polpette
knocking against my leg. I try to slow my pace,
to stride more evenly across the cobblestones
 
as they waft past us,
dark angels from another world.
 
*
 
I take to riding my bike, 
a detour from school to home, 
up the hill by their domain 
to watch them as they pace, 
faces bent into books--ad Deum, 
they intone, vivificabis nos . . . oramus te
--the words ripe prunes coursing a curving path.
 
One steel December day snow comes on, 
cloaking the land in sudden white.
I hear shouts.
There, in the swirling flakes,
caped dancers, arms flung to the sky,
feet slipping and sliding, carving patterns 
of joy on the earth.
They embrace, link arms,
kick high their cassocked legs,
snowballs fly.
Alleluia! they cheer.
 
One stops, lofts his voice into the air,
jasmine tenor, sweet with longing:
Ave Maria, gratia plena . . .
The others stop also, turn their faces upward.
Pink tongues reach out of wide-open mouths.
 
Snowflakes wheel and spin
 
I tilt my face up too
 
Anne Canright
​
The photo that inspired this poem is I have no hands that caress my face (Io non ho mani che mi accarezzino il volto), by Mario Giacomelli (Italy) 1962. It can be seen at 3:23 in the video above.
​
Anne Canright lives in Monterey, California. She is currently working on a novel about the WWII Japanese American internment, but she loosens up (or gets unstuck) with poetry. She has published most recently (prose) in Persimmon Tree.