Just read Larkins’ ‘Church Going’
I like it
Haunting atmospheric piece to read
Wondering what church stands for,
Is it dreaming?
Or wishing for a thought to be a deed
My church back in Hindsford
Has been closed now
Nigh on twenty years
And not pulled down
Preservation order keeps it standing
What for what for?
There’s no one now around
Is it a challenge?
To our thinking
To the way we try to pray and worship God?
The old way had a mystery about it
A beauty that we lost
We lost a lot
‘It pleases me to stand in silence here,’
Larkin at his simplest wisest best
‘Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,’
Larkin again, he does not jest
We seek the silence seek the word that fires us
Feeling a hunger deep inside
It’s not the building really it’s a person
Jesus invites us to abide
Brian Fahy
21 May 2021
Erris Poetry 