The Ruined Church

[heslopian]

Like teeth through gums each pillar stands.
Roofless columns, broken, dead.
The weary floor is now long gone,
and where the dark brown pews once were,
facing the altar like hard faced women,
their expressions sanded down
through years of toil and wifehood,
only grass remains, kept green and fresh
by volunteers, all from the National Trust.
No sermons have been read here
for some centuries. God has packed his suitcase and left.

Trees surround, those dumb tourists,
night hovers above the lonely circle,
and the moon illuminates a corpse,
lying where the priest would wait
to greet his flock in years now passed.
She wears high heels, a torn white dress,
hoop earrings and a lace stocking;
the other one is nowhere near.
Her make-up is smeared and her eyes open wide;
the windowless arches stare back in mourning.