Heaven’s Light, a Poem

Heaven’s Light

Written in Notre-Dame Cathedral Paris 

HEAVEN'S LIGHT

I was built the way cathedrals rise, from centuries of grief and stone,

flying buttresses of longing, holding weight I bore alone.

My ribs arched inward like a nave no soul had thought to enter,

and I mistook my hollowness for something at my center.

 

I am the hunchback of my own quiet grief,

wounds I have worn so long they've become belief:

a crooked thing of scars no eye can see,

that love was never carved for hearts like me.

 

I thought no rose window would ever bloom inside of me,

convinced that stone like mine was made for shadow, not to see.

I carved my gargoyles out of every wound I could not say,

and set them watching, silent, over all who passed that way.

 

But then you came, and did not turn or flee,

and loved the wounded, ruined parts of me.

You touched the very wounds I tried to hide,

until the ruin softened, and I cried.

 

You loved the architecture of my soul as one loves ancient stone,

not fleeing from the broken parts, but claiming them your own.

Where I saw only darkened glass, forsaken and undone,

you saw a nave still standing there, still sacred in the sun.

 

You did not bring a lantern to my dark — you were the light,

not borrowed, not reflected, but something burning bright.

And where I'd built my life around a shadowed, hollow view,

I learned instead that heaven's light had always looked like you.

 

But even grand cathedrals burn — I've watched the fire climb,

and centuries of stone give way, undone before their time.

And still, from every ruin, hands returned with patient grace,

to build her tall again, more lovely in her rightful place.

 

So if you ever see the wreckage I have carried, carved so deep,

the beauty that was always there, before I learned to stand —

I hope one day you'll come to know the parts I used to keep,

the cathedral rising slowly now, rebuilt by grace's hand.

 

I was broken, burned, all of me gone but the bones —

and grace rebuilt me slowly, stone by patient stone.

I never thought I'd know this glow I feel tonight,

candles lit one by one, each flame its own small light.

 

And one candle still burns for you, perpetual and true —

the angel that I saw there, in that moment, was always you.

And I have come to know, of all that shone so bright and clear,

that deeply, truly, you were heaven's light drawn near.

 

And should your own cathedral burn, and fall to ash and flame,

I would lay down in the fire, and call it home just the same.

I'd lift you, stone by patient stone, until you rose again —

and love you, not perfectly, but faithfully, until the end.