Sweet intoxication

Old candle wax enshrouds

The stale musk of cassock and alb

Perspiration of long departed choirs

Emanation of fresh-cut flowers

The sepia gaze of rectors past

Whispers drifting from the Chancel

Upon high, cobwebbed eastern arch,

Beyond the reach of man (and duster)

Stained glass window on another time

Somewhere between here and Holy Lands

An epoch of collective passion has taken form

Devotion moulded into stone

All our fears and uncertainties

Steadied, calmed by cold constant tiles

And dusty blackened oak

A heavy silence before evening mass

When the windows darken

And the endless rage of life is quelled

Finally

we are

alone with our thoughts