Produced by Dennis Camire

This week’s poem is by Maine Poet Laureate Stuart Kestenbaum of Deere Isle.

Listening to Stones

Venus de Milo at the Louvre for Bruce Bulger

By Stuart Kestenbaum

At first there are so many

people crowded around her

with cameras, smartphones and iPads

that it looks like a press conference,

only Venus isn’t taking any questions

from the reporters today, she is risen

above us, and the tourists

below ebb and flow all day

like the ocean around the island

of Milo, where she used to live, where

stones must have life inside them

to make the gestures so human that

even the eyes are watching us.

She isn’t timeless for you can see

the passage of centuries in the pockmarks

on her armless torso and her face yet

she survives as we all survive — humans,

gods or stones — in the immutable light,

how still she stays through the busy day

and the silent, cool, star-filled night

Dennis Camire can be reached at dcamire@cmcc.edu