The Means Of Michelangelo Poem by Jan Sand

The sculptor once pointed out
That his duty to the stone
Was janitorial.
By removing excess alone
In quotidian regime he=d rout
Extraneous material.
So, would he free
The embedded figure
From debris
And discover what
The marble was about.

Humanity is compounded
Of confusing multiplicities.
The mass is veined
With good and horrid things
In such excess to leave confounded
An intelligence that would be strained
To comprehend its eccentricities.
Its appetite for total hate,
For absolute devotion,
For overwhelming greed
Far beyond all human need,
Floods of curiosities
Re-enforced by mad emotion,
A vital lack of great good sense
In proportions huge, immense,
To leave someone
Who does care
In despair.

What would Michelangelo have done
With this totality?
What would he have sloughed away
To bring internal reality
To the light of day?