Explosions of Light

A nave and its ghosts

bear witness to explosions

of light and heat and fire

fire swept down the street

as sparks mutated into flames

dancing cross rooftops

consuming the place

Chaucer knows, leaving

charred wood splinters, ash

and smoke, and later

a sky shell hollowed out

what Sir Christopher wrought,

leaving only a stone fabric

monument to the dogs of war,

until moved piecemeal

to enclose a place for Light.

Photographs: St. Mary’s Aldermanbury, a medieval church destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, rebuilt by Sir Chrisopher Wren, destroyed by German bombs in 1941 during the Great Blitz, left as a testament until 1961, and moved to Fulton, Mo. in 1961, where it was restored near the building where Winston Churchill gave his “Iron Curtain” speech in 1946. Today it sits atop the National Churchill Museum (and a fine museum it is). Nearby is “Breakthrough,” a sculpture constructed from blocks of the Berlin Wall by Edwina Sandys, Churchill’s granddaughter.