A Walk through Notre Dame

I feel the weight of these stones,
God in this half-light.
I walk a groove smoothed by footsteps
of popes and kings,
Joan of Arc,
Bonaparte.
There is only the sound of slow feet
below hush-mumbles of foreign voice,
and yet, I hear music,
a dirge as weighty as the one
warping from Dickinson's slant of light,
the same slant that now stares
through stained glass
like laser eyes of Our Lady.
I suffer hope in candles
and the roots of candles gone.
The scent of burning wax
struggles to bless me,
bless mankind,
and all the cardinals lying
face up beneath their images,
bone below stone,
awaiting that first crack of rapture.
I climb the Colitre side of the double helix,
steps dished out by the feet of ancients,
German soldiers, and travelers like myself,
who squeezed up the stair,
black hole,
throat of time,
blind and a step behind each other,
to empty out among the stars,
above the clamor of the square,
the flesh of Paris,
sirens on St. Michel,
and newspapers fluttering
a failure at Reykjavik.
I slip my arm around a bony waisted gargoyle,
rest my head on his hard shoulder:
even these stones will awaken to cry out.


(Arkansas Magazine, Arkansas Democrat, March 8, 1987)