Separated at birth

Two famous statues by Augustus Saint-Gaudens stand at the entrance to the American Wing of the Metropolitan Musuem of Art: one is the bronze figure of the goddess Diana (which was once the weathervane atop the old Madison Square Garden building); the other is a marble statue of the Onondaga chief Hiawatha, sitting deep in thought. Through words and images, we explore how perhaps these two hunters can "know" each other, through artists' eyes. More thoughts, at blog.amynelsonhahn.info

Two hunters, separated only

In amongst the potsherds
and the stained glass fascinations,
you can still see living two
grand aberrations of their days --
one, a lily-queen of hunts who
goldeneyed supervised the fights
(little did she know what she
had been fortified to do).
But then there is the legend's worry,
the one who frowns and, inglorious
casts down his spear upon the rock --
the bravest brave and celebrated by so few,
a god-in-the-making, quite rough-hewn.
Compare these hunters, separated only
by few hundred years, and miles.
Compare how we might reverence them;
compare the ways they are said to have lived
that somehow never die.
Copyright (c) 2012 Amy Nelson Hahn

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