The soulless church
The ivy climbed up the cracked walls,
Loose stone holding on by a branch,
Filthy stained glass punctured through,
Slated roof piled up like an avalanche.
In the centre of an old forgotten village,
Grassy fields covering many daily lives,
Ancient friendships and past livelihoods,
Stories of ancestors are all that survives.
Nature has claimed her fertile land back,
Around the empty and soulless church,
Its once welcoming door always open,
Jammed by the roots of a silver birch.
The timeless clock seized at five o’clock,
A sudden end to its hard working days,
The heavenly chimes trapped in the past,
It’s peel dissipating in memory’s haze.
Walking inside the crumbling building,
The air of its once full pews remains,
The colourful light shafts from outside,
Shattering on the floor like candy canes.
The cosy warmth of the churches spirit,
Overtaken by England’s natural damp,
Burrowing into this building’s bare bones,
Leaving its infamous black mould stamp.
The narrow middle isle snakes between,
The broken wood from the benches,
Leading towards the barely beating heart,
A stone altar the leaky roof drenches,
The marble platform was a thing of beauty,
The focal point of the villages praise,
Adorned with gleaming gold candlesticks,
Shining with the glow of summer days.
Now darkness consumes the sacred stage,
Empty of all human life and cracked,
But in the shadowy gloom a bright patch,
A beam of light forges down intact.
This circle of midday sun perfectly formed,
Warmed a little pile of collected soil,
Wet by the rain through the holey ceiling,
A seed had rooted and began to uncoil.
The soulless church had a precious new life,
Building upon its solid stone foundation,
A cradle of safety and restitution from danger,
A perfect sanctuary for a soul’s creation.
Part Dalek 