Poem: Visiting the Cathedral

That day I took my mother to visit the cathedral. I watched her from behind as I pushed her sitting in her wheelchair. Age and illness had forced her to remain prostrate in it. I observed the weakness of her thin brown hair and felt a great compassion for her. She had not talked to me for a long time in her world, and she stood there in silence without even turning a single time to look at me .....and her body trembled to the beat of the wheelchair.
And so we entered the cathedral. I knew that she had visited the cathedral frequently since she was young but I also knew that it had been many years since she had not perhaps due to the long time it took to restore it during which public access was not authorized so I thought she I would like to see its inide fully restored in all its Gothic splendor. It was like a small gift I wanted to give her as a farewell because I sensed she would not live much longer and would leave soon.
When we entered the immense main nave I admired the high pointed archs, the perfection of the building and my gaze wandered astray among the slender columns, tapestries on the walls, paintings, statues and noble shields on the key stones of the pointed arches.
I took my mother to the base of one of those colossal marbled columns and putting my hand on the cold marble I said to my mother: "look at this beauty!" But I was disappointed when I saw that she remained impassive with her gaze far and lost. The truth is that I have never known what to give my mother for a gift that would make her happy ......
So I continued to slowly drag this wheelchair through the main nave, passing in front of the side chapels inmersed in the gloom from which figures of angels and saints emerged, in the hope something could move her but the most I got were slight moves of her head as if trying to observe something in that darkness ... those statues of angels, saints who had been watching her passing by when she was young with her head covered with a black mantilla, walking towards the crucified Christ who was waiting for her in a privileged place in the central nave.

Barzilai