Quasimodo

… it was like the inside of a big bell ringing full peal … this rugged cathedral was his armor.

Victor Hugo, Notre Dame de Paris

If I have told you something beautiful,
remember, I was provoked.
I’d not have breathed a word
had the cathedral not swung like
a cosmic bell, and I, Quasimodo,
not clung to the rope in thrall to Marie.
No word could have come from me
had I, humpbacked bone cathedral born,
not hung above the rapt faces
fast to the bellrope tolling bells
whose thunder deafened me,
Notre Dame’s roaring ocean:
Guillaume, Chambellan, Pugnaise,
Thibauld, Pasquier, Gabrielle,
big sparrow John, Nicolas, Francoise,
little brother Claude, Jacqueline,
Barbara who drove the lightning away,
le gros bourdon, Emmanuel,
and Marie, her gift, the silence
in which to toll her mighty bell.