Of Bears and Penguins

In the mornings, I drive by the St. Alphonus Catholic Church and I hear the bells ringing the people to seven o’clock mass. It is the best sound in the city, the bells. Underneath the steeple in the pale blue gray light, the people cross the street, mount the steps and rush through the doors to morning prayer. Old nuns, and young laborers mounting the steps to prayer beneath the bells.

The bells call my heart to prayer as well, as I drive by the steps on my way to my school.

A couple of weeks ago I was making my daily journey, and I heard the ringing of the bells, bells, bells. Goosebumps came up on my arms and neck as I realized that Edgar Allan Poe walked these Baltimore streets. Never mind the fact that Baltimore is merely the bookends to his life and much of his work was done in Virginia. It is in Baltimore that his roots lie and where he lays now in his grave under the bells of the city.

My heart continues to smile at the tintinnabulations of St. Alphonsus bells, my heart still moves to prayer, but not before my mouth murmurs a few words of Poe’s, “ah the bells, bells, bells.”