Notre Dame

[selenak]

The sight of Notre Dame burning was devastating all through the night. It also made me do what I often do when feeling desperate, fall back on other people's creations to express what I feel. There's John Ormond's poem "The Cathedral Builders":


They climbed on sketchy ladders towards God,
with winch and pulley hoisted hewn rock into heaven,
inhabited the sky with hammers,
defied gravity,
deified stone,
took up God's house to meet him,
and came down to their suppers
and small beer,
every night slept, lay with their smelly wives,
quarrelled and cuffed the children,
lied, spat, sang, were happy, or unhappy,
and every day took to the ladders again,
impeded the rights of way of another summer's swallows,
grew greyer, shakier,
became less inclined to fix a neighbour's roof of a fine evening,
saw naves sprout arches, clerestories soar,
cursed the loud fancy glaziers for their luck,
somehow escaped the plague,
got rheumatism,
decided it was time to give it up,
to leave the spire to others,
stood in the crowd, well back from the vestments at the consecration,
envied the fat bishop his warm boots,
cocked a squint eye aloft,
and said, 'I bloody did that.'








It's been years since I stood there, took those pictures, or climbed on the roof which you could do, but the certainty of Notre Dame in its beauty surviving through all was never something I ever questioned, and the cathedral in my own hometown burned twice (though many centuries ago). I knew, of course I knew, this could happen quite outside of war or any kind of malice. But not to this church, in the heart of France.

This morning I listened to Bruno Pelletier singing Les Age de Cathédrales (from the musical Notre Dame de Paris, aka the one most defnitely not based on any Disney version but on the actual novel), and now I can't get it out of my head again:

"Le Temps des Cathédrales - Bruno Pelletier" (Watch on YouTube)

Comments

[ratcreature]

At least we've got plenty experience restoring and rebuilding burned down churches, considering how often they used to go up in flames. And the news this morning looks better than the outlook seemed last night. Still awful, though.

[selenak]

That is true, and I just saw the "rosace", the window I photographed, is still intact, which I'm so relieved about. But so much of the wood and stone carved by those medieval masons is still gone...

[musesfool]

Ah, that poem is perfect for a response to the fire.

[selenak]

Samuel West posted it in the night, and it immediately resonated with me, too.

[cadenzamuse]

That poem. Yes.

[rose_griffes]

I was reading that there are no longer oak trees of the size that was used for the original interior roof framework. Also of interest, one English expert in restoration said that the cathedral walls would have been at greater risk if that wood had been replaced with steel, as was often done in 19th century restoration work. Apparently that might have pushed outward on the walls during the fire.

Bruno Pelletier has an incredible voice; I've always loved his performance in the musical Notre-Dame de Paris, even when I find many of the visuals and choreography to be distracting.

[monanotlisa]

It was horrifying and surreal, to see the photos...