View from the terrace of the family's Brooklyn Heights apartment

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Ulmer Münster

Through the haze
sun-diffused
the spike stands skyward
much too tall
in the Lilliput landscape
how many kilometers
from the anxious autobahn
In a portico niche
stands the madonna
with her archaic smile
saying how pretty is my babe
though stony centuries
pile rock on rock
and shout hosanna
In the choir
wooden saints are segregated
according to sex
for even the blessed
cannot be trusted
in the sacred dark
They seem a gloomy lot
displeased with the arrangements
awaiting the millennium
or maybe a mug of beer
Above the gloom
the spire triumphs 
a Dantesque experience to climb
nine times nine
round the mounting spiral
to hang in the webbing
and feel the great bell
shake Ulmer Münster
to the bones of whatever worthies
lie grimly under foot.

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