On this day, three years ago, the artist freed the statue from a stone.
He struck a fracture point and yielded unto the world the object of his dream:
A maiden in black quartz whose pearlescence glimmered with a gleam.
At the witness of her mien, one man’s voice lost the words:
“Oh, charm-bearing rock, savoring the sun,
So sweet on mine mind, my lips come undone-
I exalt your form, your affect, your grace-
Your every detail finely finding place.”
He turned to the sculptor, who was fastened with prestige, saying
“Ever your artistry did fascinate,
Ever your eye did delineate
A Venus from a bare mineral-
Your genius made ‘ere literal.”
Though, this selfsame day, three years past, the artist stood chagrined, aghast
To have seen the fruits his labor amuse- an ignoramus, then so enthused.
For the man with pick and hammer in hand, had not taught for what he did stand.
The sculptor addressed the man with a start, proclaiming
“How dare you dare, oh blithering dolt
To claim this bears no glittering fault;
My stone I’ve struck and thus remade
So witness’d by this retrograde.”
The pointed man continued, vexed with dismay:
“The hammer and pick I once could trust,
Hath yielded such a charming bust.
This piece I’ve made unto your awes,
Is not without its meager flaws”
With might, with craft, the sculptor picked and struck her crags
The man remained to study the glass. The quartz was polished, then, alas,
Her shape now to the eyes of all, had, in the end, become banal.