The Cathedral’s Hollow Echoes
An old man treads where dust and shadows lie,
His cane, a brittle companion of years,
Taps faintly, counting whispers, hopes, and tears.
The stained glass saints, in hues of twilight’s grief,
Cast fractured light on memories, brief,
That coil like incense through the hollow nave—
A symphony of silence, deep and grave.
He halts where once, beneath these vaults of stone,
A youth’s bright vows were fervently intoned.
The altar, draped in twilight’s ashen veil,
Now guards the ghost of passions, pale and frail.
A spectral face—ah, hers!—dissolves in air,
A breath of jasmine, vanished from his prayer.
“Return,” he pleads, “to days when joy was spun
From threads of dawn, before the dark begun!”
The walls, indifferent, hum a muted hymn,
While shadows weave their shroud around his limb.
A phantom choir, in echoes long consigned,
Sings requiems for all he left behind:
Her laughter, like a brook in spring’s embrace,
Now choked by time’s unyielding, barren grace.
The roses she once twined in raven hair
Are thorns that pierce his soul with mute despair.
He stumbles toward the pews, their wood outworn,
Where echoes of her voice, once bright, now mourn.
A tattered ribbon, frail as winter’s breath,
Unfurls—her relic, braided for his death.
“Forgive,” he gasps, though none remain to hear,
Save Time, who grinds all love to dust, austere.
The candles gutter, starved of final light,
As dusk devours the cathedral’s height.
Then stillness—save the toll of distant bells,
That chant the dirge of every tale Time tells.
His hand, now stilled, lets fall the fragile thread,
As shadows claim the dreams his heart once fed.
The stones, unmoved, endure in grim repose,
While night’s vast wings enclose what daylight chose
To spare—an old man’s plea, too frail to rise,
Entombed where hope’s last ember gutters, dies.
Annotations
- Structure: Composed in strict iambic hexameter (Alexandrines) with caesurae, mirroring the old man’s labored breath and the cathedral’s solemn rhythm. Enjambment between stanzas creates a flowing, dreamlike progression.
- Imagery: Contrasts light (stained glass, candles) with decay (dust, shadows) to embody irretrievable time. Tactile relics (ribbon, cane) ground abstract longing in physicality.
- Symbolism: The cathedral represents both sanctuary and tomb; the phantom choir and extinguished candles signal irreversible loss. The ribbon’s unraveling mirrors his dissolving grasp on memory.
- Tragic Arc: Moves from fragile hope (“Return,” he pleads) to resigned despair (“Entombed where hope’s last ember gutters, dies”), with the setting itself becoming an antagonist—a tomb for living grief.
