{"id":2352,"date":"2009-10-26T22:57:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-27T02:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/?p=2352"},"modified":"2009-11-03T22:33:29","modified_gmt":"2009-11-04T02:33:29","slug":"stained-glass-windows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/2009\/10\/26\/stained-glass-windows\/","title":{"rendered":"stained glass windows"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Chagall's

Chagall's windows at Reims Cathedral<\/p><\/div>\n

We were there to have our picture taken
\nto promote the little church’s Christmas program.
\nMy few previous visits have always been at night;
\nthis was at midday, when the sun was streaming
\nthrough the saintly scenes in the stained-glass.
\nThis was medieval television: pictures brighter
\nthan paintings that themselves were a step up from
\nlaboriously illustrated and illuminated manuscripts
\nread aloud by tonsured aesthetes in sack cloth.
\nGregorian chant, plainsong echo faintly high overhead
\nfrom a century ago and centuries before, punctuated
\nby German tanks and artillery rumbling closer to Reims,
\nuntil finally, the great cathedral bleeds a tempest
\nof rubble and shattered mythology, and where stood
\nstone and art, birds and weather fly in and take over.<\/p>\n

I saw Chagall’s great glass triptych, bluer than sky,
\nmore emotional than mythology, perhaps too
\nspiritual for a church, even a cathedral, especially
\na cathedral. I sat in this little church in Canada
\non the day of the photos, immersed in Chagall’s
\nglorious heaven, more there than here, more swept
\ninto the past than left in the hard pew and chatter
\nas the traffic rumbled by, rumbled by, rumbled by.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Next month, I shall be reading Stave IV of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, as part of the CBC-sponsored reading at St. John’s Church. We had a photo op today; this poem resulted. (#954) Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,3,416],"tags":[188,215,181,436],"class_list":["post-2352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lotus-eaters","category-poetry","category-thoughts-below-ground","tag-art","tag-religion","tag-ritual","tag-spirituality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}