How it all slows down
while I walk until the end
of the monochrome alley of tiles.

The notes of the organ
- a breathing giant of metal pipes -
are still suspended with the dust,
half-alive in the rays
of light from stained glass.
(half-alive?)

Pushed from the outside,
doors that weigh 300 years
move to show an opening:
there is an inside and an outside,
a past and a present…
those doors, a landmark.

This fullness inside,
I never quite knew what to do with it,
until, in the calm scent of wood and candles,
it struck me that I just loved
the simple pleasure of carrying it.

A few more slow steps
and there she is; an orphan with an orange halo.
Dignified and lost,
a princess with a suitcase.
Her hair is braided so tight,
she can barely turn her head.

I step forward…
(forward)
she’s now sitting on the floor,
her back turned to the altar of a small side chapel.
The devilish tongues of fire dance around her head
on top of bridal candles.
She will not talk – just observe
the details in the paintings.

My back against cold marble,
I don’t know what to do:
protection is a vain promise
to someone so far in time.

To surprise me is the echo of my voice,
wandering in the heights:

- Do you run?
- I do, she says while caressing the Madonna’s draped veil,
organic flow, intense blue.
Then she adds, with sadness and gravity:
- But I don’t like that.
(Gravity)
- You could learn, improve, even enjoy it.
My raucous voice, my forced enthusiasm
are all I hear.

Suddenly, I remember, at the entrance of the cathedral:
the kiosk where they sell postcards and flacons of holy water.

I reappear – she looks a little yellow in doubt.

- Take this.
- Is it really holy?
- Sure.

She’s so close. I hold her, hair smelling of early spring.

- You have something precious now,
given from me to you. Protect it and yourself – the two are now linked.`
And, remember about running, you will know when the time has come:
feathers on wings are made for flying.

Suddenly, I need to sit down:
fatigue has reached deeper in my bones.
There, at my left, the relics of a saint, exposed – a tibia.

I’m already breathing the profane rain beyond the heavy door,
allowing memories to be washed.

There will be no more longing.
Emotions, like acupuncture needles
delimitate, stimulate until
the whole pattern appears; a map of the past,
a belonging that I can now put away.