[font="times new roman"]I Remember You[/font]
[font="times new roman"]-Julianna Will[/font]
[font="times new roman"] [/font]
[font="times new roman"]I remember you.[/font]
[font="times new roman"]I saw you at the gates of Rome.[/font]
[font="times new roman"]I saw you in their vaulting pillars,[/font]
[font="times new roman"]The supple arching stone.[/font]
[font="times new roman"]Your eyes were hard and dark[/font]
[font="times new roman"]And your soul shrank from the dome.[/font]
[font="times new roman"]Blind, they tried to hold you, to contain you[/font]
[font="times new roman"]And thus they held you: quiet, kept, alone.[/font]
[font="times new roman"] [/font]
[font="times new roman"]I saw you there,[/font]
[font="times new roman"]And I though you were dead[/font]
[font="times new roman"] [/font]
[font="times new roman"]I remember you.[/font]
[font="times new roman"]I saw you rising to eternal height,[/font]
[font="times new roman"]Higher yet than the sky did seem.[/font]
[font="times new roman"]You blest us for what wasn’t right[/font]
[font="times new roman"]Beneath oil paintings and rich hymns,[/font]
[font="times new roman"]While you laughed and danced with light.[/font]
[font="times new roman"]Your eyes shone like your glitt’ring painted sills[/font]
[font="times new roman"]And twinkled like stars in the soft spoken night.[/font]
[font="times new roman"] [/font]
[font="times new roman"]I saw you there,[/font]
[font="times new roman"]And I thought you were beautiful[/font]
[font="times new roman"] [/font]
[font="times new roman"]I remember you.[/font]
[font="times new roman"]I saw you in the burning tombs,[/font]
[font="times new roman"]The iron bars and blackened crosses.[/font]
[font="times new roman"]I saw you ripped from a mother’s womb.[/font]
[font="times new roman"]Watched from gilded eyes you wept[/font]
[font="times new roman"]As your children paid for what you’d doomed[/font]
[font="times new roman"]Yourself to give. They fought themselves to be[/font]
[font="times new roman"]What you, yourself, said in the darkness loomed.[/font]
[font="times new roman"] [/font]
[font="times new roman"]I saw you there,[/font]
[font="times new roman"]And I though you were broken.[/font]
[font="times new roman"] [/font]
[font="times new roman"]I remember you.[/font]
[font="times new roman"]I saw you in the gold of kings;[/font]
[font="times new roman"]In the cold eyes of pompous men.[/font]
[font="times new roman"]You were there in diamond rings,[/font]
[font="times new roman"]Marbled pillars and sunburst alters,[/font]
[font="times new roman"]Bright gold stone amid sad dead things;[/font]
[font="times new roman"]With fat men who would profit off your name,[/font]
[font="times new roman"]Promising us what only death brings.[/font]
[font="times new roman"] [/font]
[font="times new roman"]I saw you there,[/font]
[font="times new roman"]And I though you were blind[/font]
[font="times new roman"] [/font]
[font="times new roman"]I remember you.[/font]
[font="times new roman"]I saw you in the ones alone,[/font]
[font="times new roman"]In their hopeless eyes and close shorn hair,[/font]
[font="times new roman"]In a man who weeps for he cannot atone[/font]
[font="times new roman"]For everything you put in him.[/font]
[font="times new roman"]I saw your malice in their prison home[/font]
[font="times new roman"]As they begged you for forgiveness, for being men[/font]
[font="times new roman"]For with humanity they’ve grown.[/font]
[font="times new roman"] [/font]
[font="times new roman"]I saw you there,[/font]
[font="times new roman"]And I though you were ugly[/font]
[font="times new roman"] [/font]
[font="times new roman"] [/font]
[font="times new roman"]Oh yes, I remember you.[/font]
[font="times new roman"]I saw you in dead woods and seas, [/font]
[font="times new roman"]In a plague you uncontained.[/font]
[font="times new roman"]I saw you in a dying plea,[/font]
[font="times new roman"]In the hungry eyes of hungry children,[/font]
[font="times new roman"]While the sinners whispered “Please!”[/font]
[font="times new roman"]And as the dead fell about your feet[/font]
[font="times new roman"]I saw you stack and sort them with such ease.[/font]
[font="times new roman"] [/font]
[font="times new roman"]I saw you there,[/font]
[font="times new roman"]And I hoped it was not you.[/font]