Openings

Openings

Inside my Church, all is still and quiet,
All locked up because of blight;
And dust gradually settles down,
Like a finest gossamer gown,
Upon the altar. The pews empty:
None for Christ on the cross to see;
And the organ silent, no sweet singing,
Clocks stopped, bells ceased ringing;
As if time held its breath, paused a while,
Looking down along the empty aisle:
Cemented stones, sea sand and lime,
The moment: a gap in interstitial time;
O still, small voice of calm: patient be,
As time ticks away, rocks worn by sea,
From ages past, has seen the years,
And all the joys and all the fears;
Ancient limpet shells upon the walls,
Fading from sight, eventide fast falls:
The dark times, the times of dread,
When life was hanging by a thread;
Plague came, the congregation fell:
All people that on earth do dwell
Are frail, dying as the disease spread:
Give us today our daily bread;
But the baker was taken in the night,
So many dead, such sorry plight;
And fear came again to stay within:
The Puritan, of zeal, seeking sin,
Smashed stain glass, whitened walls,
The glory of the Middle Ages falls;
A reformation, old ways swept aside,
And nowhere to flee, nowhere to hide;
And once more the lock turns in the door,
Silencing the distant sea upon the shore,
Shutting out the sinner, the Puritan laws
No more singing within choir stalls;
It is dark and cold again and no one there:
Lockdown: a precaution fuelled by fear;
But the Christ looks down from altar stone,
God became man: bone of my bone,
And waits: patience can wait a thousand days,
To stay in silence, until that mighty praise,
The door unlocked, open, flung wide,
The sound returns of the turning tide;
Openings: I was blind but now can see,
And in they come, pray on bended knee:
Praise to the almighty, and peace on earth,
The choir sing carols of a child’s birth.