Читать книгу Pilgrim’s Gait - David Craig - Страница 7

After French McDonald’s,

an older, thicker bicyclist—with curls—

not yet pathetic, lagged behind, racing

younger mates. I watched him,

Jude on my shoulders. (We sized each other:

France and America, in the wake

of Charles de Gaulle.)

Just outside the gates of that heaven,

that idyll of praise: shops stuffed the street,

good art­­—and not—for sale.

Tasteful French corps pushed wheelchairs

inside; and underground, a massive church,

like some holy bus terminal: 100,000 people;

Masses, screens in different languages—

the great, decaying church up top, with its inclines,

pews, decrepit enough to convince anyone

that what mattered most wasn’t there.

In town at Sacred Heart Church,

where the actor-priest had reduced Bernadette

to sainthood: no pews, just benches

and the Mass in French—airy as a town square,

which is what it was: the nation’s fiber.

Jude, at three, ran across that basement,

through shadows, just to sit next to

a darkened statue of St. John Vianney.

The water in the holy baths froze,

and I, flippant: tasteless at mom’s, bouncing

on her furniture—as an attendant mumbled

something about reverence.

We both caught colds.