Requiem for Notre Dame

(in the style of Sylvia Plath)

-

Cold and smoldering, our lady

Wanders barefoot along the fabled hall;

Shattered panes through, drifts of prayer

Like smoke over puddled wax.

-

Prayers that hugged the firm shoulders of a wooden cross

Tangled in the ash huddle of stone and molten lead

Now fold their wings like gargoyles and disappear

Into the sky space where once stood the spire.

-

Birds circling overhead are not what they might be

To the gazing child, the hungry thief

Beyond the clair-obscur of plumes and flame;

Behold the Cathedral as Inferno.

-

A lone priest squats among the wreck

Of kaleidoscope shards

Probing fractured Mary with a stick

Under amputated shadows of parapets.

-

A young wind flutters the tattered altar cloth

That stretches out beneath the rubble;

Though we yearn to utter secrets in her ancient confessional bosom

A single rosary bead is all we need.

-

Parisians will love again; the actual sun

Will scrupulously rise and set over the Seine;

The circling birds will wander off

Et c’est comme ça, comme ça, comme ça.