Love Letter to the Cathedral from a Bohemian

O Notre Dame! There over the Seine
you stand, your Lutetian stone
and its silent gravitas
measuring allotted time—

slipping through the grasp
of the voiding hourglass.
But you are a lady—
one of the many once

that men of faith rushed
to expunge from the ranks of gods,
whether from below
or even from the sky.

Thus here, in your loneliness
of naked beige and cream,
forged from the stranded sands
of long-bygone seas,

you still beautify yourself, coyly,
with violets’ shadow
and celestial blues
of your translucent eyes,

and hold your inflexible watch
as you weigh—day after day—
how much or how little, if at all,
the throngs stepping

inside through your carved gate,
heads bending back
to meet the lordly reach
of your ascending arcs,

can press your body downward
or lift you from the ground,

while you, yourself, a Charon’s
long and well-masked barque,

let them all come aboard—
and having taken them in,
you sail, and your silence
is the palladium none can clasp.