Member-only story
POETRY
St Mary’s
A varied trip, a layered journey
down the road through a morning
but back in time
to childhood masses and priests long gone
to where my great and grandparents rest
A memory of the time
when they didn’t have to keep the churches locked
and my mother, beside me, now old
was young in wedding photographs
An ocean of blue carpet
like the sky in my dreams
Christ suspended, victorious upon the cross
splendid in the glory of candy colored light
through an array of artful glass
A remnant of the memory of cousins
dressed as altar servers
in the years when standing on a kneeler
was the only way I could see
A front row family, we chose it again
to celebrate the Jubilee in relative solitude
the church lit by the winter sun
and us washed in hope
splendid ourselves in the light
of an extraordinary morning
in ordinary time
