Sacred Conversations

After seeing Titian's "St. Mark Enthroned, with SS Cosmas and Damian, Roch and Sebastian', Venice.
I am tired of all those Saint Sebastians standing there
at the feet of Madonna or super-saint, among other
saved ones all waiting for the next prayerful utterance
while ruminating on eternity. He is always so undressed
yet so aloof, so helpless yet complacent, so wounded yet whole.
I like saints who hide their virtues beneath ample,
jewel-coloured robes, for whom pain is pain, and joy, joy,
not some awful mix-up of the two.
Still, this Sebastian by
Titian stops me. Only one arrow pierces his body;
another, fallen from his calf, lies on the floor, abstemiously.
He has a serious, inward gaze, and no blood. But the glory
of the painting is his stance, graceful yet arrogant —
if one could strut while standing still, he's doing it.
My guess is that he was a sixteenth century gondolier,
happy to be gaining money for so little effort, but bored
with standing motionless for so long on terra firma.
So he imagines being gazed at by each woman who enters
the church — over four centuries, a tall order,
but time has delivered…
Above, Saint Mark is half-shadow:
Moses-like, he holds the book, stares at dark stars;
but this man's face is clear, his body resembles neither
ravaged nor risen saviour's, the knots in that white cloth
can be undone… For those arrows belong to Eros,
and this is not Christ but Dionysus, who has wandered into
a strangely silent conversation.