***
A pale, yellowish light
Rose from the autumn ground,
Covered in leaves
Like candles shivering
In their brass sconces.
The icy sky shone over the plane
With constellations of sounds
Unknown to the Earth’s ears.
The wind swept gothic clouds
Rapidly over the church spire,
They looked like torn pieces of darkness.
It began to rain.
The rain beat heavily and slowly
Against the tin-clad roof of la chapelle.
To those sitting inside,
It must have seemed as though
Stravinsky was drumming his fingers
On the piano
And humming to himself.
But it was not the great musician –
It was the water from the sky
When a pale, yellowish light
Rose from the candle,
And fell on Mary with the Christ
Who stared deeply with her moist eyes
Into the air.
Serenity was clearly
In every muscle of her hand,
In every constellation on her face,
In every tone of her skin
Honeyed by the autumn candle gleam.
