. . . and on this rock I will build my church

      Gospel of St, Matthew 16:18




Saint Cecilia, In Passing

My evening walks take me past an old church,

Out of place now where once fields and farms

Made a village of common cause and communion.

Now there is no room for the late light to lengthen

Into shadows, and when it leans at last against

The stained glass windows the colors bleed into

A dark and empty blur, neither reflection nor

Revelation; how, as a child, I mixed all the paints

Together and the page became the color of dirt.

Perhaps sacred ground is really no more than this,

My faith not in regalia or rituals but in stones.





Poetry by countryfog
Read 517 times
Written on 2012-06-03 at 19:15

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josephus The PoetBay support member heart!
So well said, my friend. I see many churches in states of terminal dereliction especially in inner cities. These were built by the waves of immigrants to North America's cities. They are inevitably within walking distance of each other because neighborhoods meant something then and no one had a car. The neighborhoods have died and the churches with them in all their Gothic and Greek Revival splendor. They have turned into tilted and worn headstones of congregations long since dead in the wilderness of a city core.

You have reminded me that churches do not contain God.

Joe
2012-06-04