{"id":6221,"date":"2022-03-14T10:14:09","date_gmt":"2022-03-14T14:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/?p=6221"},"modified":"2022-06-06T13:56:50","modified_gmt":"2022-06-06T17:56:50","slug":"the-sexton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/2022\/03\/14\/the-sexton\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sexton"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Interior<\/p>\n

After William Merritt Chase, In the Baptistry of St. Mark’s, Venice<\/a> (1878)<\/i><\/p>\n

On Saturdays, at terce
\nI polish the brass. One by one
\nthe candles from their unlit altar
\nin my calloused hands I carry
\nto a bench of pine my ancestors made.<\/p>\n

Outside the sun bakes pilgrims in the square.
\nI sit in shadows, back against cool marble.<\/p>\n

The candlesticks rest in my lap.
\nThe polish stains my apron.
\nI peel away the hardened
\nhusks of thrice-said prayers,
\nand with a cloth gentled by laundering
\ncaress their graceful necks, their
\nswollen bellies, arch\u00e9d feet.<\/p>\n

I have no hurry. I have
\npolished this candlestick a thousand
\nyears. I shall polish the next
\na thousand more<\/p>\n

until the light from high
\nwindows the dark stones swallow
\nfinds each arc, each surface,
\nmakes it gleam.<\/p>\n

I need no candle here.
\nI make the unseen visible.
\nMy eyes will find
\nmy work when it is finished.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After William Merritt Chase, In the Baptistry of St. Mark’s, Venice (1878) On Saturdays, at terce I polish the brass. One by one the candles from their unlit altar in my calloused hands I carry to a bench of pine my ancestors made. Outside the sun bakes pilgrims in the square. I sit in shadows, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8I1ci-1Cl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6221"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6221"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6383,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6221\/revisions\/6383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}