Chapel of Bones          Audio

A Capela dos Ossos, chapel of bones,
built by Franciscan monks 
at Évora's Church of St. Francis 
in the 16th Century. 
How methodically they must have gone 
about their work, or art, have drawn  
from thousands of skeletons, 
as if mere pigments for a canvas, 
and they had the heart of a Brueghel 
in his Triumph of Death.  Skulls line the vault 
of the ceiling; leg and arm bones 
make up the many supporting columns. 
And surely life is fragile!
All we strive for in this, the physical realm,     
may be for naught.  But is this a way 
to say it, and through indi-
rection, to suggest in a time, not distant 
from plague and Inquisition, 
perhaps implicitly, the spiritual? 
Or have we here a view of life
with the joke on us?  There's a writing,
macabre, for each to take to heart. 
Nos ossos que estamos pelos 
vossos esperamos:  we bones that are here
are waiting for yours.  And that tale 
about one of the bodies that hangs 
from the top of a column 
near the chapel ceiling, a man, cruel 
to his wife, whom even the worms 
didn't want:  to wit, a moral, 
if one dare take it, 
be kind:  be wanted by worms!

The very building 
that once housed the Tribunal 
of the Inquisition
is part of the University 
of Évora now.
Outside, there's a small granite sculpture
of a coffin with a body in it --
tasteful, minimalist. 
It could relate to almost anything. 
People come and go. 
Do they care, know?   

All over the country now, this legend. 
A small town.  A man condemned
to be hanged  for something he didn't take --
piece of silver, a plate, a chalice . . .
The details vary. His last wish --
to see the Judge -- is granted.  He pleads
his innocence at the latter's home: 
the people laugh around the table,
upon which lies a roasted cock.  In an act
of madness-- call it faith -- the condemned
man, near weeping, cries out that to prove
his innocence, the bird will get up, sing.
The elements seem in place
as if for the stage:  a sympathetic victim,
the power of belief, God as mover
of miracles, the sexual near,
or at the surface.  In the story as told --
from tour guide to post card --
the rooster did rise to the call!
The only thing missing may be implicit,
a beautiful woman:  does she wait
in the wings somewhere, distraught, fearful
of hearing the worst?  The man is set free!
If ever there were a need for a miracle . . .
because Portugal has known triumph
with explorers, like Bartolomea Dias,
Vasco da Gama, Pedro Alvares Cabral,
and then after dividing the world, taking
half, giving Spain the other -- what chutzpa
there! -- a disastrous decline.  A legend
can, at times be, like a glass of port,
or two, with a toast -- saúde! -- savored
with something sweet, while the world
churns along with its plagues and wars,
and madness, makes a person feel
powerless.