On Notre Dame, Burning

by Greg McClelland

The lady was hemorrhaging.

A city’s heart bled red and black

into a somber sky.

Medieval dust, long lain in her crypt,

leapt into the twenty-first century.

Flames framed her surreal bones in relief,

and gargoyles crept to the fringe to escape the heat.

But beyond architecture, beyond sacred architecture,

she is universal Spirit.

Even atheists wept.