In the pale light

After Romans 13:12 

In the pale light

of early morning,

before the crowds 

stir and assemble,

before the cars 

and cabs and

buses packed

with tourists with

their necklaces

of camera straps,

the church stands

silent, unmoving,

a testimony to its

builders from

a millennium 

before. They built

to last, stone rising

on pale light, its

presence sufficient

here in the morning,

here in the pale light.

 

Photograph: Early morning at Westminster Abbey, London. I took a long walk for exercise very early one September morning in 2024. I had never seen the Abbey without throngs of tourists and traffic jammed on the streets around it. The entire area looked deserted.

Some Friday Readings

 

Depart From Me, Lord – poem by Br. Peter Coyette at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Holy Joy – Ben Graber at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

“Prayer for Creation,” poem by David Adam – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

The Shepherd of Hermas – W. Winston Elliott III at The imaginative Conservative.