RUBLEV'S ICONS

Fifteen centuries
go by Andrei Rublev's paint
the lashes of art watering
in yellow, blue and red
to scrub your Russian icons
with wounds of exhaustion
on back breaking long ago
in the Fifteenth century
with the suffering God
buried in prison camps
with angels alighting
on their windy
wings on riverbeds
of the people's penury
awakened blood of snows
with an artist heaving echoes
to answer the breathless
river at the monastery's dust
in the nights of panic
and pain at the steeples
of the church's sun's glow
saints still on gold ceilings
wander by forever
counting tears in a bottle.