Rouen

The cathedral ruined, smoke-charred, empty.

All the stained glass replaced by clear panes.

Somewhere in the garden, unmarked

among weeds and branches spiring skywards,

the grove where Jeanne was burned.

High above the floor in the spaces of the roof,

on a catwalk, a worker cleans the windows.

Somewhere in this cathedral dark stairs lead to that place.

Through the dark-blue window it’s 1942:

the war has come to Rouen.

Ravens swoop down.

All the windows shatter.

Chunks of roof breaking off—falling—

The floor littered with prismatic rain.

The statue cracks to rubble on its pedestal.

The chapels on the south wall shudder.

One after the other collapse to dust.

The nave creaks and pitches, rising and keeling

atop the flood of light.

Every saint’s image has disappeared save one:

Ste-Catherine being stretched on her wheel—

Her stone arms alone hold the long south wall.

Who is the brave one? Who has been called?

Harmony unbuckles as Jeanne turns her head to answer.

The long walk goes through shadow and arch to the garden grove.

The music is snapping, thread by thread.

The statues are all missing from their pedestals

The garden has grown apart from the gardener

The famous woods torn up by tempest

I am no longer that tempest

I will no longer look up and see the absence of trees

This is not a descent into catacombs, an inevitable combustion,

a darkening into blindness

Rather it is an approach on knees towards true sight