for bellringers
on smudgy autumn nights.
No clarity of sound, divine, articulate,
to purify the air
and bow the heads of drinkers in the city bars.
No single
solemn
funeral note
to answer
grief.
I sawed and pulled and hacked.
I wanted silence back.
Get this:
When I was done,
and bloody to the wrist
I squatted down among the murdered music of the bells
This is the last anachronistic address to the reader. The shortest of the short one-line stanzas, spoken by Mrs Quasimodo now with a note of triumph instead of self-blame.
Mrs Quasimodo