Our poet today, Colin Hopkirk, writes “I like churches. For all their complex meanings, their ugliness and beauty, there’s still an atmospheric shift from the outside to the in.” And on Day 603 of the daily poems he delineates all the integral details and complexities of our historic churches.
Elements
If it’s about churches
then it’s dust
dusty hassocks
dust in the vestry
damp stone
flaking lime-wash
foxed paper
burnt wax
font and pulpit
a tired organ
a brass cross
bells of course, tower
columns, the roof
an upturned boat
and wood
wood in the roof
wood in the pews
perhaps a rood screen
a padlocked box
slate and lead
light of course
streaming light
all that glass
coloured or plain
Christopher carries the child
across the torrent
Mary simpers
angels wield sword and flame
Colin Hopkirk