Saturday, 4 February 2017

"Feast of the Transfiguration, Arque la Bataille, August 6th 1992" --- poem by Mary Monk



Stone tracery alert to every breeze,
her gargoyle sentinel,
her swallows high,
she raises steep-stacked towers above the town
like black gigantic sails in seas of corn,
and floats her shadow dark between the trees.
Built in the spirit born this festival
when frightened men saw a transfigured Lord
and talked of ‘making shelters’ --- to hold close
the ever-changing vision (human dream)  ---
this church has somehow through the centuries
reached equilibrium;
a sheltered space
where God is met and worshipped,
solid, real ---
yet where unknowing also has its place,
implicit in the candles’ flame, the stones
dented before each chapel;
mark of men
glimpsing the glory with an inner eye.

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