An old man dies in Spain at 96
All his life the builder of a church
In childhood days he saw his church ransacked
And priests shot dead
The Spanish Civil War
He joined the Trappist monks
But could not stay
Tubercolosis took his health away
Undaunted he promised the Madonna
He’d build a shrine if cured
In her honour
Sixty years he laboured at his work
A strange concoction
A cathedral built from junk
What strange propulsion
Kept him at his work
That childhood sight – destruction
Of his church
He would repair make good
This gave him worth
Each one of us
Is called to build a church
The building of our life
As best we can
Take what is there around you
And raise it from the earth
And let your life praise God
And reach the sky
Brian Fahy
31 May 2022
+ Justo Gallego Martinez (1925 – 2021) is the subject of this story.
Erris Poetry 