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What loves, takes away
 1937 Eleanor Wilner 

If the nose of the pig in the market of Firenze 
has lost its matte patina, and shines, brassy,   
even in the half light; if the mosaic saint 
on the tiles of the Basilica floor is half gone,   
worn by the gravity of solid soles, the passing 
of piety; if the arms of Venus have reentered 
the rubble, taken by time, her perennial lover, 
mutilating even the memory of beauty;   
                                                                                                          and if 
the mother, hiding with her child from 
the death squads of brutality, 
if she, trying to keep the child 
quiet, to keep them from being found out,   
holds her hand over his mouth, holds him   
against her, tighter and tighter, until he stops 
breathing;   
                              if the restorer—trying to bring back 
to perfection the masterpiece scarred by its 
transit through time, wipes away 
by mistake, the mysterious smile. . . 
                                                                                                          if what   
loves, and love is, takes away what it aims 
to preserve,   
                                 then here is the place to fall   
silent, meaning well but in danger 
of marring what we would praise, unable 
to do more than wear down the marble   
steps to the altar, smother the fire   
we would keep from the wind’s extinction, 
                                                                                                          or if, afraid   
of our fear, we lift the lid from the embers, and send   
abroad, into the parched night, a flight of sparks, 
incendiary, dying to catch somewhere,   
hungry for fuel, the past, its dry provision 
tinder for brilliance and heat, prelude 
to cold, and to ash. . .