Lady (of Paris)
Lady (of Paris) A lot of good men and women found God in that fire. There, a mong the flames, where the shards of aquamarine rained upon purgatorial faces no longer grey and etched but alive with motion and color. The sun, unaware of the burn, poured out its radiance, painting mourners as morning prayers. Bridges were filled, shoulder to shoulder, eyes wet and red, eyes white and wide. From within the blaze, one could hear the centuries coalescing in cacophonic clanging. Seven blasts. Seven blasts. And then to see that penitent steeple, how it did bow, its skeletal shoulders slumping forward in voiceless prayer, swooning as if grace still held some providence among those aged timbers and crenelations . How lightly it descended, elderly bones hard and hollow, thin-skinned, little weight, but heavy in grace. It was. But what was it? What wood? What plaster? What cracks and imperfections? It will be made anew by the good...