The Silence of the Bells at Notre Dame

(for Bruce)

We met once briefly over a year ago
at a small convention of tired friends
and today our mutual friend called
to tell me you had stopped
your own running life.
If you could come back right now
we would likely not recognize each other
even if we were both on an elevator
but after I was told I remembered
that tiny hour when you were alive
and how you had run
all the appropriate social errands,
father, male, husband, friend, grown-up
for everyone in the room,
everyone except the hunchback
who needed the Cathedral’s absolute sanctuary
and couldn’t find it anywhere


Bruce the poem ends there, but “why ?” the nagging ghost hovering over our “now,” wants to go on, not the journalist’s or psychologist’s “why,” or the neighbors and co-workers indifferent wondering “why,” not the “let’s get to the bottom of this” judges, police, and prosecuting attorney’s “why!” and certainly not the “shirking responsibility” or “cowards way” theorists shouting from the bleachers of their humanity. No, it’s God’s “why,” not that cultural goon we’ve been given but the good one of infinite possibilities in the child’s eyes, who doesn’t understand why there wasn’t one safe manger for your pain or why our relationships are not built to be a refuge of joy for us rather than a general store for our shopping list of demands, the good God who doesn’t understand why we can‘t be caregiver, cathedral, carnal carnival, and comedy theater for each other, who wants us to go on until we get it right.