“She/They”
I am both Notre Dame and the sacred space which fills her vaulted archways.
I am gargoyles and spires and the vibrating silence after the bells have ceased.
I am that which cannot be seen, cannot be touched, cannot be proven;
I am stone, glass, wax.
I am facade and everything it fails to encompass.
I am sanctuary.
Perhaps your Notre Dame wanted to burn, did you consider that? Perhaps it was tired of its current state of existence, of the centuries of careful preservation made to ensure it never changed, never evolved, and was ready to burn and crumble and decay. Why must you rebuild it? Why must you fight to preserve everything in unchanging stasis? You humans are so frightened by any evidence of time’s passage, so petrified by the potential of losing something to the past. Why? What purpose does your fear serve but to trap you in the ever unravelling cycle of control versus chaos? You must know the chaos always wins out in the end (you do know that, right?) so why not embrace it? Why not let Notre Dame burn and celebrate the beauty of charred timbers and melted glass? You humans are so fearful and it blinds you to the true wonders of your world. It’s a shame, really. Especially given how little time you have left.
Perhaps we should have let her burn.
Perhaps the flames were a gift,
a divine invitation to free ourselves
from this obsession with edifice and artifice.
Perhaps if she had burned to the ground,
we might have seen that sacred space
requires no cathedral to exist.
Only Fragments 