by Micheline Ishay
Notre Dame over Paris towered.
Her spire inspired and empowered,
Sheltering the beggars across time.
Shockingly, a fire burned its spine.
The top fell: crackling,
Crashing, and blazing…
Such collapses come always fast,
As other tragedies of recent past.
Plagues, floods, and worsening storms.
The plundered planet in an altered form.
Choking air, winds swirling,
Sweltering, drowning…
Wars destroy lives even faster,
Slaughter peace-loving dancers,
Bury children under rubble,
Entrap peace in an endless tunnel.
The music was thrilling,
Then shooting and shrieking…
Their screams drowned underground,
Lost in Pluto’s crowded underworld.
Vile geniuses dug a cave of hell
While humanity failed to prevail.
Wrath unleashed the dogs of war,
Fangs flashing, growls and gore.
In the “City of Lost Children,”
Thieves stole youthful dreams
Staving off aging by any means.
Schooling generations for revenge.
In cycles of never-ending violence
Interrupted by dreadful silence.
They say miracles cannot be ignored.
Notre Dame is almost restored;
Its iconic rooster found under debris,
Remade for a world to be free.
It took less than a day to crumble,
But years for artisans to reassemble.
A step at a time:
Sweating, Swearing,
Her spire inspired and empowered,
Sheltering the beggars across time.
Shockingly, a fire burned its spine.
The top fell: crackling,
Crashing, and blazing…
Such collapses come always fast,
As other tragedies of recent past.
Plagues, floods, and worsening storms.
The plundered planet in an altered form.
Choking air, winds swirling,
Sweltering, drowning…
Wars destroy lives even faster,
Slaughter peace-loving dancers,
Bury children under rubble,
Entrap peace in an endless tunnel.
The music was thrilling,
Then shooting and shrieking…
Their screams drowned underground,
Lost in Pluto’s crowded underworld.
Vile geniuses dug a cave of hell
While humanity failed to prevail.
Wrath unleashed the dogs of war,
Fangs flashing, growls and gore.
In the “City of Lost Children,”
Thieves stole youthful dreams
Staving off aging by any means.
Schooling generations for revenge.
In cycles of never-ending violence
Interrupted by dreadful silence.
They say miracles cannot be ignored.
Notre Dame is almost restored;
Its iconic rooster found under debris,
Remade for a world to be free.
It took less than a day to crumble,
But years for artisans to reassemble.
A step at a time:
Sweating, Swearing,
Longing, Laughing, laughing…
Micheline Ishay is Professor of International Studies and Human Rights at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. She is Director of the Center for Middle East Studies and was founding Director of the International Human Rights Program. She is the author of half a dozen of books, including Internationalism and Its Betrayal (University of Minnesota Press, 1995), The Nationalism Reader (Humanities Press, 1995; Prometheus, 1999), and The Levant Express: The Arab Uprisings, Human Rights, and the Future of the Middle East (Yale University Press, 2019). Her books, The History of Human Rights: From Ancient Times to the Globalization Era (2004, 2008) and The Human Rights Reader: Major Political Essays, Speeches, and Documents from Ancient Times to the Present (1997, 2008, 2022) have been translated into multiple languages and published in second or third editions.