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Article: Perspective.(Poem)
- Article from:
- The Christian Century
- Article date:
- July 11, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 The Christian Century Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Perspective
In medieval paintings, the cobbler stood just inches high
beside the saints, who rose like water towers,
until Brunelleschi thought up single point perspective,
and proved it, lines receding to a speck on the horizon.
Once people saw it, they couldn't forget:
the statues and churches kneeling to just one lover.
How thrilling! To stand at the commanding point.
Each of us at the center! It's the great
myth of the personal. Dutiful art teachers swung
the myth in buckets to the next teachers
until generations later, it bears
the heft of Truth. That is, it did, until the night
I drove the death car, ...