(Which I wrote while I was trying to write something else. Doesn't exactly rhyme... or do anything, for that matter...)
Cathedral of Mary
by Grayswandir
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Notre-Dame, what stone porches -- what statues and arches!
The damsels with torches, the saints and the spires,
The angels that grace thee, the rose-window tracery,
Lace-like and chaste, catching sunlight like fire.
Who, heedless of God, dares look past this façade?
Dares to laud or condemn that which passes within?
How man struggles alone, while the bright bells intone
Their bold praise for stone statues, not subject to sin;
How the priest, as he stands with his heart in his hands,
Feels the seraphim brand him and turn him away;
How he begs to be freed from the want -- from the need --
To be touched -- how he pleads to be stone as are they.
But the bells go on pealing; the statues unfeeling
Look down on his kneeling -- indifferent, cold,
While out on the pavement, in sun-sparkling raiment,
She dances, God save him, in daylight and gold.
Gilt beads and silk bands, and her brown Gypsy hands --
Surely God understands, and forgives his desire --
Her black Gypsy hair -- but the statues just stare,
And forsaken in prayer, he's resigned to the fire:
The hell of a passion constrained to the sacraments,
Flame cooled to ash in ascetic denial,
In sackcloth, suppression, contrition, confession,
Tradition's endeavors to mimic Job's trial.
Look once on this man whom the Lord has abandoned,
Who, hapless and stranded, grasps blindly for truth,
Bound both by her beauty -- his lust -- and his duty
To God, whose pursuit he took on from his youth.
Cathedral of Mary -- how airy thy heights,
How careless of prayer and regardless of pleas.
Your statues so wise, with their timeless stone eyes,
Do they cry for the souls whom God leaves on their knees?