Chapel once the beatitude

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Upon the going back

                                    to the village chapel,

that beatitude of old ladies,

their quiet reassurance

                                       of having pierced the veil,

for which the pub men in their smoke

                                                                   had not a laugh

not even for

                  the grace of the Sunday school teachers.

For they had grown away, as men do,

                                                           as we knew we would.

Must!

So.

We asked the deacon what is God?

And he said God is love.

We asked the deacon what is love.

And he said love is God.

Then we all walked away.

Now the chapel has a bramble collar,

a thorn crown, bleeding down upon its shoulder.

      Grass grown steps

                                      and a rusty handrail.

Windows of dry tears where the flaky paint

pricked as it snowed.

“No entry”

Cannot go inside – God forbid!

But the conspirator crack said look,

see the organ,

                        that cadaver white in a dusty shroud.

In a rictus of bared teeth, a sneer

      where once a wood stained veneer

reverberated to the hymns, and where

      cold bums sat hard,

             attending the sermons

                      with a wrinkled brow.

What now?

                    I saw a bird skull white upon a post.

What significance can a poet drag from that?

A child’s feral laugh at a sling shot trophy.

Probably. But still sinister in my dark thoughts.

                  Is that all this stone box is reduced to?

Even the pub has gone.

The angels and daemons have declared a truce.

Laughed at my pilgrimage to the locked doors.

My nails clawing at the plaster-shorn walls

of the hall where we laughed

at the absurdity of the Band of Hope,

                                                        even as we drank it in.

Oh, this bloody congealed dust,

the trespassers on our prayers,

our kicking and flailing at the jungle

of weeds that did fall on stony ground,

and yet have grown to choke the charity,

the swirling veils of the old ladies,

who held our hands

                                   in the snow-light walking home.

How can a chapel become deconsecrated?

Even on the cross the cry of “why?” was suffered.

I leave my shadow to keep watch over

my memories. To call me back should

any of the congregation return.

Piercing the veil – as they say.

To flow with spectral fingers pointing

                                                                   to the past.

Then I must and will return,

and on our knees

we will sublimate into the billowing dust

as our pasts go crumbling down.

Listen, listen!

                        They are singing in the Cymanfa Ganu.

Dear God, why did you let this chapel die?

Ask the deacon, why did you walk away?