IN KINGS NORTON CHURGH
Ponderous in age, the church's body leans
On bent and crippled pillars. The chill air,
Charged with the centuries' dust, weighs on the sense
And leaden silence presses on the ear.
My mind is heavy with the weight of dust,
The dust I am the dust I am to be;
It was no burden on my grandsire's mind;
He laid his grave and funeral garments by
And here he came for comfort. Comfort found,
Knew himself mortal, and prepared to die.
But in these days, man's not in God's mould cast;
He's bond-slave to his nurture and his genes,
Compound of chemicals, a random choice,
Given for convenience a name like Jones,
Real for a space between the dark and dark,
A transient and predictable machine;
Then, obsolescent, slid to the retort
With electronic anthem, and the shine
Of candle-imitating lamp, and the sad rite
Of a commercial and a sordid shrine.
Here, even here, I cannot quite forget
The chemicals, genetics, and the Freud;
They are demonstrable, as God is not,
But, God in Heaven, they make a bitter food,
Regurgitated in the wastes of night;
When finitude's the horror we must face,
When, comfortless, I wait for dusty death
And shibboleths and creeds will not suffice;
Ah, then I covet my ancestor's faith ,
The pearl he held to be beyond all price
Bill Stanton
April 1967
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