In Chagall's great painting of David and Beersheba
one head contains both faces. A red angel
flies over one eye and a blue angel reads above another.
Janus could see in two directions
at once, who was coming into the house and who
was leaving. He stood in the doorways and arches
of every Roman city, he blessed the journey
and the return from the journey.
Love must be a two-headed journey,
terrible and wonderful, coming and going from the porches
and terraces of its desiring
like these bright figures.
Villagers cluster in the corners of the painting,
small sheep and green goats nibble the sky
against the mournful violin's
music of fidelity.
We raise our several faces when we love--
family, village, woman, beast--
moaning in our technicolor sleep.
For him the store rooms of the heart
were never empty, God's messengers arrived to guide
the action in the story, and we too have arrived
in time to catch the ark, leaving momentarily
through the stone arcade of Genesis
for our wild and blessed exile.
Robin Becker
Giacometti's Dog
.