Ile de la Cite weeps
like a fire hose dousing
dancing, infernal
flames to no effect.

Our Lady dies in her sleep,
dreaming of resurrection.
Gothic buttresses hold up
charred timbers and gloom.

The spire crashes into
nothingness; miracles
asphyxiate on fumes.
Still, the Rose Window

blooms. Memory resists
the flux of time.
Eight centuries snuffed out
like a wooden match.

Wait for it: the coming light.
Paris will reclaim its own.