At the Gravesite of Theodore Gericault

It comes across as inappropriate,
To me at least; no, not the romantic statue
Of the artist reclining atop his granite stone,
His soulful gaze modestly averted
As he thrusts his brush and palette toward us
As though presenting them as credentials,
As proof of his worthiness to be interred
In Pere Lachise, the cemetery of artists.
After all, this is in Paris, France,
Where an excesssive amount of conceit
Can be both expected and forgiven.

No, it's the bas-relief below the painter
That I object to, his "Raft of the Medusa,"
Reproduced in bronze, now oxidized to green,
As if shyly trying to shed its notoriety,
Drift away, and anchor amidst the lush foliage.

After the French frigate Medusa ran aground,
Close to a hundred fifty souls, those without clout,
Were jammed onto a raft made of masts and planking.
Rank and prestige had piled into the six lifeboats
Which first tried to tow the raft behind them,
But soom cut it loose, that umbilical cord
Of humanity that threatened their own survival.

After fifteen days, the strongest fifteen remained.
Soldiers and officers had been thrown overboard first,
Order and leadership jettisoned like moldy rations
As despair flexed its muscles and vented its anger
Upon the minions of the state that had betrayed them.
The weak and the wounded were next thrown overboard,
As they all had been, but without the pretense of a raft
As a salve for conscience. Maddened by thirst, heat
And hunger, those left finally resorted to cannibalism.

The painting depicts emaciated survivors
Frantically waving to attract a distant ship,
Waves rearing up behind them, hope illuminated
By an eerie storm-breaking light that frames
The raft in storm-bred shades of brown,
Surging seas soil-sodden from the sandbar,
Menacing clouds laden with Saharan dust;
Earthtones reaching out to engulf exhausted men
Poised between the ecstacy of deliverance
And the hopelessness of abandonment.

One wanders a cemetery seeking some solace,
Some life-affirmation amidst the marble tributes.
One looks for hope, some affirmation of God's love,
His mercy, his heaven, and perhaps immortality.
This artist's harrowing depiction of men
As evil and brutish beasts summon dark images
To intrude upon the stark stone finality of death.
Yes, this bas-relief is inappropriate here.