Alsatian Christmas

Brain emptying vertigo;
blank excepting, images of a choir, no bells
and the most amazing alto ever.
Sitting in Alsatian darkness
there is a toll
from the eglises in Lampertheim.
Two parishes, dueling spires, reach for heaven.

What stories of love and life linger still,
birthed from the Protestante with a fine churchyard,
from the Catholique on the main road?
They share the Lampertheim Eglise Bus Stop
for those heading to the new train.

And a stork flies off a centered high perch
circling the village.
Avian ancestors flew here,
over the three patisseries,
closed tomorrow for a celebrated birth.
These things shared and enduring –
like bread broken and wine spilled.