Notre Dame de Paris Catches Fire by Rachel Custer - Rattle: Poetry (original) (raw)

And everybody becomes a poet, seeing

meaning where there is no meaning,

seeing metaphor in the destruction

of metaphor. A house of God on fire

is a poem. Listen: it is saying nothing

stands forever, nothing you love will

not be burned away. Good Friday

has come again, and somewhere men

nail themselves to wood to feel like God.

Somewhere a man sets fire to a girl.

A crucifixion is a poem, saying nothing

dies forever. Even a woman who burns

will rise again. Notre Dame will rise again,

says a man on a Paris street, and he

is crying. Paris is not the same without

her. A man crying on the street is a poem

saying nothing feels like holiness, the fire

that burns away everything but what is

good. What is good? This day, a man

coming down from his cross, a girl

walking forth from a fire, raising again

her voice to sing the good news.