I crossed myself and stood at the altar,
eternity wound around my finger:
the crushed moment of my solemn singer
was the moment when the burned stone
faltered.
I cannot ask for more from Gibraltar,
but for one of these little ones,
ringer
of the bells that call them home, rise
linger
on the sweetened isle, fading light
loiters
as the peals repeat and resound,
silence
breaking at the notion of sound's fury.
The burnished cathedral has fallen,
died;
attic to cellar smoke with violence,
the steeple tied to the dead we bury
when the beating steel heart of Paris
cried.
