St John's, King William County

II. Experience


St John’s, King William County

All life is passage, but here at the center
Everything is known and seen: Like
Corners without angles, lifted by the
Strength of walls that have endured
Wind and wrack, the tight windows

Pass light without alteration day, night,
Day, night, and what light there is content
With us who, like smears on untrammeled
Earth, do not last. Clay is strong-fisted and
Unalterable once given a shape, while we
Sag with time and motion until we change.

Once, they walked above the clay of roads
Dampened with spring or hard with fall and
Crossed the transept to hard pews staying beside
Others in ordered profusion to hear the soft
Voice of creation speak though something less
Than clay a day out of seven, but now we

Stand in the presence of silence and dead walls,
Speckled with our own passage and can
Not find a way to say the light has no ending.