Le Mont Saint-Michel

Here are two views of France's Le Mont Saint-Michel as I saw it on the 10th of July, 1999, and the poem that I wrote after my visit there. The poem won the "In the Spotlight" award from The Poetry Page, Ontario, for fall, 1999, and it is in my book, The Alchemy of Opposites (St. John, KS: Chiron Review Press, 2000).

      

Le
Mont
Saint-Michel

A gold Michael
tops the pinnacle,
a small announcement;
wings apart, sword uplifted,
dragon under foot, he gazes down,
further than pilgrims in the Middle Ages,
who trudged, their view blocked by forest.
A triangle in the distance points to heaven,
from the place called before "tomb on a hill,"
before Archangel Michael troubled Saint Aubert
to mount his monument there.  As the people fade
like icing down the narrow streets,  the lights turn
stone into gold: this place, this entanglement of history,
with hidden, shoulder-wide stairways, midnight cemeteries,
and massive medieval walls, arches, and the golden pinnacle.

Copyright © Clifton Snider, 2000.


Here are links to more of my poems and that of others:

The Cave of Niaux.
The Age of the Mother
Art and Poetry II.
Art and Poetry III.
Mountain Lion.
Native Art and Poetry.
Shalako (includes Zuni Pueblo art).
My Selena.

A brief survey of my early books of poetry.

Read about my book of literary criticism, The Stuff That Dreams Are Made On.

Read about my new novels, Wrestling with Angels: A Tale of Two BrothersBare Roots, and Loud Whisper.

And my new book of poems, Aspens in the Wind.


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Page last revised: 22 August 2009