Canzone

There is a Renaissance painting of paradise

In which people, still in their human bodies,

Are embracing as if they'd just arrived in paradise

Or—because some are angels—were being welcomed to paradise.

Nobody in the picture looks like a ghost.

Even the angels, winged for paradise,

Wear embraceable bodies. It seems that paradise

For Giovanni di Paolo is a place of happy reunions.

And now, when we anticipate reunions

Like those in every moment, paradise

Is not exactly the place we hope to arrive.

It's been made complicated—that arrival.

Our destination is where we hope to arrive.

Simple enough but now a paradox,

Since now we cannot be certain of our arrival

And have to pray simply that we arrive.

And of course we hope to arrive in our human bodies,

The ones we've always known since our arrival

On earth, the ones for which there are no rivals

Imaginable, except as an Italian ghost

Has painted them. But who wants to be a ghost,

Even if it means being part of a revival,

Even in such a classic, reunited

As form and content, body and soul's reunion?

Let's face it, only the hardiest can see union

With art as a satisfying arrival.

For most of us, our daily lives unite

Our needs for love and work. And their smooth union

Is, come to think of it, a blissful paragon,

A reason to tell the partner of our union,

Talking about our day over dinner, united

In crunching through bread and salad, of our body's

Desire to be united with their body.

It's a good day that ends with such a union.

And though we might still love each other's ghost

And say so, what we desire is not a ghost.

Or have to leave the way we think of our bodies.

Giovanni clothes the heavenly in the ghost

Of class and calling. He paints no naked bodies,

Despite our expectations of the body

In heaven, restored to a primeval union

With innocence and ignorance. He says we'll be those bodies

Identified as us, and so we'll dress our bodies

As we have understood them. Maybe after arriving

We'll come to understand that to arrive

In heaven is to embrace a hidden body.

After all, this is but an interpretation of paradise,

Which says we bring our world with us to paradise.

I'm glad Giovanni di Paolo saw the arrival

Of souls in paradise as a time for reunion,

And not merely a mingling of bodiless ghosts.

I wish I could believe in that promise of paradise

As deeply as I believe in this mortal body.