Poem for Wednesday and Augmented Notre Dame

A Sonnet for Paris
By Mary O'Malley

This is beauty, arms open, reaching upwards.
At first the mind refuses it, but the fire
Is ravenous. It will have its sacrifice and does.
While it rages, the gold icon shimmers in kitchens,
On street corners, in bars from there to China.
The windows, the wash of light. Day in
Day out. Memory refuses it.

Let reason sleep with reason's monsters.
This is Her day, Our Lady of Paris.
In the dead of night, the ruin shivers.
Its gargoyles climb down.
Statues in elegant robes roll up their sleeves
The flying buttresses put their shoulders
To the wheel. It burns. It rises.

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My back hurts because I didn't lift right from the knees, but my house is currently free of VHS tapes, boxes, and DVD cases (the latter are in the van in anticipation of being taken to the county recycling facility, so if anyone wants any, just say so). Right now the upstairs bookcases are filled with games because we're still sorting the books, so it looks more like when the kids were little and the lower shelves had toys as well as movies. 

Half my Voyager group couldn't get online at 7 p.m. and a couple of people couldn't come at all, so we just talked for an hour and a half instead of watching an episode. Then and I watched some more For All Mankind, nearing the end of the third season, when politics comes second to (sad) personal stuff. Here are some pictures from the National Building Museum's augmented exhibit on the building and rebuilding of Notre Dame: