The key
After my morning tea, I sit by the window,
shaded by an ancient yew, and look out—
at the slanting, slipping graveyard,
the old, hollowed church, its bell-less tower.
And the key, single on its iron ring,
weighs on my lap, rust-flecked and cold.
Generations now gone, the rarest of folk come by,
rare to worship, rare to visit the cold dead
beneath their pocked and crumbling stones.
Still, I read or knit or nod, and keep an eye out
for those who wish merely to brush history,
fancy All Hallows Eve ghosts on a cold, pagan wind,
wonder at the quaint delusion of an age,
shake their heads, then leave.
Because now and then, one will step away,
break the spell, kneel to scrape moss,
work to decipher such glyphs,
such lasting runes of the past,
enact a deeper contemplation.
And among those, scarcer still,
are the ones whose need—for solace, grace
or the presence of something unbidden—
seems to wed them to the cold earth
where, after a time, the unbidden compels them
to turn their meditation to the tinctured glow
ground into stained glass,
hold their gaze a moment, then rise,
weaving a path among the stones.
It is precisely then I will reach
for the ring, unlatch the window,
and lean out, calling them.
For in this world, I am one who remains,
ever to extend to those who seek
what we have long been entrusted.
St. Mary the Virgin, Parish Church, Litton, Somerset, England
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The church is from 1150! The poem feels from another time as well.
Time skews all things. Poetry insights the present.
I can smell the wet earth and moss. How evocative this is.