Roma

Bernini was twenty-three when he began this and he chose the single impossible instant: Apollo's hand closes on Daphne's waist at the exact moment her prayer is answered and she stops being catchable.

Circle it slowly — the museum placed it so the story unfolds as you walk. Fingers lengthen into laurel twigs, toes root into bark, hair bursts into leaves; at the back of the group, marble is carved thinner than coin, translucent against the window light.

It is Baroque sculpture's whole argument in one piece: stone convinced to move. After the ceiling and the Pietà this same afternoon, it completes the trip's long conversation between marble and spirit.