The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Challenges
    • Challenge Archives
  • Ebooks
  • Prizes
  • Book Shelf
    • Ekphrastic Book Shelf
    • Contributors' Book Shelf
    • TERcets Podcast
  • Workshops
  • Give
  • Submit
  • Contact
  • About/Masthead

Sistine Chapel, The Creation of Adam, by Brook J. Sadler

11/17/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
The Creation of Adam, detail, by Michelangelo (Italy) 1511

Sistine Chapel, The Creation of Adam

"The religious ideas of Christianity [. . .] are impregnated with the majesty of fatherhood."
                                                                             Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals (1929)

Lounging on verdant green,
newly emerged from God’s 
uterine dream: Adam in repose.
Unclothed, his skin glows
like burnished gold. His angled
chin, hairless as a boy’s, and soft
his youthful gaze. But a man’s muscles,
in firm ripples, from shoulder down 
the extended arm, flow. Wrist,
elevated to form an elegant arc,
and the hand hovers in ignorance,
yet, of the chasm, the infinite distance
between two fingertips. And the small
penile gesture plainly in view. God,
 
His touch withdrawn forever. Draped 
in white like light spilled from a pitcher,
He beholds from above what He has made
below. His blue-grey beard blows back
like curls of smoke. Young Eve held back
in reserve, locked under divine
arm amid a crowd of cherubs. 
The whole assemblage—God and his
manifest—contained in a red swath
of cloth whose folds, nudged by infant
heads, belie the myth of heavenly birth.
Cracks in plaster like wrinkles in paper
crease this man-made universe. All is rent, 
unlinked, but woman-marked: Note Adam’s navel.

Brook J. Sadler

Brook J. Sadler: "In 2019, I was honoured to be a Featured Poet at the Dali Museum Poetry Series in St. Petersburg. My writing has also been supported by a residency at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts and workshops at Bread Loaf, Sewanee, and the Vermont College of Fine Arts, among others. My poems have been published with many literary journals, including The Greensboro Review, The Missouri Review, The Cortland Review, Boiler Journal, and ROAR. My prose essays appear in Ms. Magazine, Pleiades, Aquifer: Florida Review Online, Women's Review of Books, and elsewhere. I also publish scholarly essays in many academic journals and books."
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    The Ekphrastic Review
    Picture
    Current Prompt
    COOKIES/PRIVACY
    This site uses cookies to deliver your best navigation experience this time and next. Continuing here means you consent to cookies. Thank you.
    Join us on Facebook:
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture



    ​
    ​Archives
    ​

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    Lorette C. Luzajic theekphrasticreview@gmail.com 

  • The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Challenges
    • Challenge Archives
  • Ebooks
  • Prizes
  • Book Shelf
    • Ekphrastic Book Shelf
    • Contributors' Book Shelf
    • TERcets Podcast
  • Workshops
  • Give
  • Submit
  • Contact
  • About/Masthead