#apisceslearnsart

Ecstasy of St Teresea by Gian Lorenzo Bernini

No need to be coy—

you know what

she’s doing

And so did Bernini,

when he found Teresa

in the full-throttle of

her divine vision,

caught her at it,

carving this surrender

so fluidly you expect

the impossible:

for her tang to swell up, ripe

as seafoam, from the gulf

of her flushed and falling

figure. Perhaps this is how

God comes to us,

or should come to us, all:

the bluntly and

beautifully corporeal at

prayers in the Sunday

school of pleasure. Why

shouldn’t He come to us

as He did to Teresa? A saint

on her back—

a girl tearing open

the gift He gave her?

William Eggleston - untitled 1973