Virginia Rounding
Awaiting an Epiphany
Decades of dust, odd shreds of litter -
the flotsam of the faithful and the not so -
a borrowed wheelchair, boxes of unsold books,
cobwebs hanging from the ceiling;
below the floor an empty grave,
voices beyond the pre-dissolution doors,
a constant humming from the hospital,
old cold seeping damply into bone.
I stand in the block-up doorway
from cloister to the vanished chapter house,
longing for the ground to gape, revealing secrets.
Won't the faded half-inscription turn legible again,
the hints and guesses open like a Russian doll?
Surely if I stand here long enough the canons will appear -
I'll hear at least their sandals slapping
down the east walk on their way to prayer.
I stare and stare, and yet the mist remains -
a mist so beautiful, I go on staring.
History is ungraspable. I close my eyes, imagine,
till this ancient builing calls me back from dream.
For here is no museum piece,
no mere attraction for the tourist
or backdrop to romantic films:
more than Smithfield's hidden jewel,
this place survives to live and serve the living,
with the past as inspiration, not escape,
where the sacred is encountered, though unseen,
in the re-enactment of the holy mysteries.
Page(s) 32-33
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