TWO QUEENS    

Gargoyles perched

on Mary’s church;

buttresses flew

o’er fenestration blue.

Chartres’ ancient hands extend

to yet one more pilgrim band.

Saints, sinners, citizens,

common and royal --

statues, weather-grained,

usher visitors through portals

to darkened

mystery spaces, designed

by masons.

Crusader booty from Arabia,

they crafted pointed arches and porticoes

with compasses and

arcane mathematical ratios.

The gray ghost-lit columns

prop pointed arches --

and greet,

guild by guild,

         window by dedicated window,

the furriers, the tanners

the carpenters, and coopers,

the stone workers, the shoemakers

glass makers and bakers:

         first come, first served builders

still attending Mary’s sacred maternal court.

We approached the crossing

with measured steps:

nave, apse, choir, transepts.

Honoring Mary at center court.

Mother of Him,

mediator for all who seek,

patient moderator of their childlike rivalries

(Rose colored political volleys

launch across her throne.).

Her grand vista: round windows,

roses,

ancient glass

passing left, right and center,

jewel-lighting her sacred space.

Back home,

in a white  lighted,

         medic space, mystery free,

a town lined up to see

a dying country queen.

Unaware of her care-giver court,

and white curtain vistas:

         children, friends, waiting,

         assisting,

         time running short.

No eternal favors to give,

her family not divine,

she still united her pilgrims one last time –

a collected expression

of today’s goodby,

missing mysteries of the yesterdays,

that fed her generation

and led them to their time to die.

Events

would send her

through parlor, church, procession and tent.

We came to honor and remember

an old  life newly spent.

Atop the earthy end

of what remained

roses’ pained aromas

were left to ascend. 

Dennis R. Keefe

July 2, 2007

Those familiar with Henry Adams will recognize ideas from his Mont St. Michel and Chartres.