The Cathedral’s Whisper
Where shadows knit their garments, thread by thread,
A withered figure treads, alone, alone—
His breath a specter, footsteps whispers shed.
The cathedral’s spine, once gilded by the sun,
Now cradles dusk in arches cold and deep,
As though the very light, undone, undone,
Had seeped into the stones to weep, to weep.
Here, Arthur kneels—not pious, but possessed
By murmurs of a time that clings like moss
To crumbling altars where his youth once pressed
Its fervent palms, now skeletal with loss.
The stained glass glows—a fractured rainbow’s shard—
And paints his cheeks with ghosts of long-dead springs,
While through the nave, a memory, unmarred,
Unfurls its wings, its cruel and tender wings.
*“Run faster, Eli! Catch the sparrow’s song!”*
A boy’s voice vaults across the vaulted years,
Through corridors where dust and silence throng—
A laugh that drowns the dirge of falling tears.
He sees them still: two saplings, lean and wild,
Chasing the wind’s caprice through dew-kissed grass,
Their pockets brimmed with acorns, secrets piled
Like treasures in the cathedral’s crypt of glass.
Elias—sunlit, freckled, eyes aflare
With mischief spun from dawn’s own golden loom—
Would scale the oaks where starlings built their lair
And pluck for Arthur blooms of cherry bloom.
“*They’ll wilt,*” he’d say, “*but not the joy they bring—*
*Hold fast the moment ere it turns to air.*”
(And oh, how frail the petal’s transient wing,
How sharp the thorns of love no hands can spare.)
Yet even stone must shiver when the earth
Unclenches fangs to gorge on mortal vows.
One eve, as twilight donned her cloak of mirth,
A fever seized the village, clenched its brows.
Black smoke uncoiled from cottages like snakes,
And Elias, aflame with purpose, raced
Through lanes where doom had sown its ashen flakes
To drag his friend from flames that interlaced.
The rafters groaned—a beast in final throes—
As Arthur, choked and frail, felt Elias’ grip
Fuse to his wrist, a chain no fire could loose.
“*Go!*” cried the voice that storms could not eclipse,
“*The roof descends—you’ll live if you obey!*”
Then, as the boy stumbled to autumn’s grace,
A splintered beam, like God’s own fist, gave way—
And sealed the saint within that scorched embrace.
Years are but parchment peeled by phantom hands,
Yet still he comes, this wraith of guilt and woe,
To trace the stones where Elias’ last command
Echoes in hymns the shattered windows know.
The crypt’s cold tongue repeats the old refrain:
“*What worth a life preserved if love is paid
In ash?*” He kneels, each wrinkle etched with pain,
And begs the dark to barter, blade for blade.
Tonight, the moon, a scythe of pallid gold,
Suspends above the spire’s accusing finger.
A rustle stirs—not wind, nor wings unfold—
But something spectral, languid, lingers… lingers…
“*Arthur.*” His name—a sigh from silent throats—
And there, beside the font where shadows mate,
A figure stands, half mist, half memory’s notes,
With eyes that are the stars’ own mirrored fate.
“*You’ve kept your penance long,*” the vision breathes,
“*Yet chains of ‘what if’ bind you to this nave.
Was I not born to stand where fire seethes?
To die that you might bloom beyond the grave?
Take now the gift I gave—no more, no less—
And let your heart, like spring’s unburdened tide,
Forget the night you deem your worthlessness.
My joy was spent to be your guardian guide.*”
But Arthur, trembling, clasps the phantom’s wrist
(His fingers pass through light, yet burn with frost):
“*A guardian guides, not martyrs in the mist!
You left me half a soul, a lifetime’s cost.
Each breath I drew without you was a theft—*”
The specter smiles, a crescent bittersweet:
“*Then steal no more. The hour has cleft
The veil. Come, let the scales of grief retreat.*”
A gasp—the cathedral stills. The moon withdraws.
Where Arthur knelt, two shadows now entwine,
As centuries of dust exhale their pause
To cloak the stones in patterns more divine.
Dawn licks the panes, ignites the ruby glass—
Two boys, hand-linked, sprint through the resurrected grass.
