Notre Dame, a Phoenix Rising

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

[Update, 3/5/20]: As restoration work on building and artefacts continues, French President Emmanuel Macron has since announced that Notre Dame would be rebuilt by 2024 although, of course, this was before the Covid-29 pandemic. Fingers, crossed ...]

Regular readers will know I do not follow any religion although I have every respect for those who do so. My Christian upbringing let me down too often to have any place in my mind-body-spirit. Instead, I chose to put my faith in nature, especially given that no religion has a monopoly on spirituality.

Even as a child, I felt as close to Earth Mother as to my birth parent, and when my mother died, the latter saw me through one of the worst periods in my life, culminating in a nervous breakdown some 40 years ago; both have continued to sustain me since.

I once had the good fortune to visit Notre Dame cathedral with an old friend who is no more religious than yours truly. We both fell in love with its beauty and were held in voluntary thrall to the sense of spirituality it evokes long after leaving its towers, stained glass windows and precious artefacts behind …

When a raging fire broke out, all but engulfing Notre Dame earlier this week, in the early evening of Monday, April 15th, I shared Paris’s grief among many around the world; like them, too, I heaved a sigh of relief that its main structure remains standing and there is potential for as impressive a restoration as saw the survival of York Minster after a fire there some years ago. Moreover, the heroism of French firefighters tackling the blaze, and that of the chaplain who ran into the burning building to save what precious artefacts he could, well deserve a place in history.

Notre-Dame spire collapsing 

(photo from the Internet))

This poem is a villanelle.

NOTRE-DAME, A PHOENIX RISING

Gothic cathedral, pride of a city,

Notre-Dame, loved by all,

global metaphor for spirituality

Though fire threatens its entirety,

its proud exterior stands tall;

Gothic cathedral, pride of a city

Heroic firemen, salvaging history,

though its spire takes a fall;

global metaphor for spirituality

Brave chaplain confronts eternity

at Heaven’s call;

Gothic cathedral, pride of a city

Paris in tears and hymning its story,

free world in thrall;

global metaphor for spirituality

Stoic survivor, messaging its glory,

world answering its call;

Gothic cathedral, pride of a city,

global metaphor for spirituality

Copyright R N. Taber 2019

(April 17^th 2019)

Flotilla of Remembrance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Today, May 21st 2015, a flotilla of boats will set sail from Ramsgate to mark the 75^th anniversary of the Dunkirk evacuation during World War 2.

This poem is a villanelle.

FLOTILLA OF REMEMBRANCE

To Dunkirk, the little ships did sail

for tens of thousands, backs to the sea;

an awesome task they dare not fail

Its bloody beaches saw hope prevail,

a town on fire, centre-stage for history;

to Dunkirk, the little ships did sail

Ordinary people, answering the call

to play their part for king and country;

an awesome task they dare not fail

Injured and dying due for a miracle

few could believe they would ever see;

to Dunkirk, the little ships did sail

Tens of thousands plucked from hell

under plain sail transcending the ordinary;

an awesome task they dare not fail

Soldiers of Peace, heroes one and all,

applying humanity’s balm, braving its fury;

to Dunkirk, the little ships did sail,

an awesome task they dare not fail

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010; 2015 

[Note: May 27^th - June 4^th 1940 saw the remarkable rescue of tens of thousands of allied troops trapped under enemy fire on the beaches of Dunkirk. ]