for Alexander 
 

Writing the icon 
he embellished 
love and beauty 
as absorbed in 
contemplative airs, 
effusion of spirit 
as clarity and boldness 
of line; eggs in one basket, 
gloss, portholes 
through heaven, as fallen Byzantine 
we glow in now, we degenerate 
in spiritual glitz, 
in faith as bold and brittle 
as halo, as bold and brittle 
as lambs, birds, trees 
not captured in the detail 
of delicate light.