Lady (of Paris)

Lady (of Paris)

        A lot of good men and women found God in that fire. There, among 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 men and women of God, heavy and strong, but it will not be made graceful. No. It will only be made as all man-made things are made, by men. No hand of God will touch the shimmering surface, not until the sun of our sons sets, and perhaps then Grace will come out and blow against the perfection and twist and humble it. 

J.M. Rogers