a sonnet-length draft below (an ekphrastic attempt of sorts).
Man vs. Himself
Trapped in marble, Rodin's Thinker
maintains its pose, considers moss.
Mind’s poise has settled on that chin,
a testament to a century’s sheen,
a need for re-viewing. Because once
it was a poet. Since it is naked,
it must not feel, the enlightened
might have thought. History loves
comedies. And paradoxes. Now
and then the sun exposes it, triggers
brilliance in its bronze. Now and then
birds, tourists. They come and go,
like Eliot's women: dressed against
Dante, yet talking of Michelangelo.
