Crystal Rock
(Béziers)
You follow a hidden winding staircase
and step down inside a crystal rock.
You have become very small and dark
or the space around you tall and light.
You stand on the ground of a tower of ice,
a polygon of translucent stone.
Is it a cavern? Is it a glacier?
No, it’s a chapel beneath a chapel!
It is a cell in an ancient cluster:
a grey cathedral crouched on a rock.
Your soles touch a surface beneath the soil,
your eyes reach a tent of light like the sky.
This staircase does not lead to a nightmare:
it should be baptised a lightmare instead.
That era should not be known as Dark Ages:
it ought to be honoured as Ages of Light!
Christina Egan © 2016
Photographs: Christina Egan © 2016
These lines refer to the same ancient town of Béziers as the last post, Roof-Tile / Plateau. There, you can see more views from the roofs of the Cathedral.