“Peterborough Cathedral” by Elisabeth Vodola

A garden in the spectrum schooled,
With boxwood hedge precisely ruled;
Voices, intermittent, rose and fell,
Every quarter hour, the bell;
My thoughts descending like a mist upon the grass,
Curling this way, edging back to that,
Stopping short to let a stranger pass;
Flagging, drifting, following the path,
Pooling round a catastrophic aftermath.

At thought's edge, the angle of the sun,
Streaming red, blue, violet, through the trefoil glass.
One great will, one testament, is closed,
The question of its sequel not yet posed.
A twinned messiah waits investiture.
For now, all is calm, and, being, is good.
A way through to theology seems sure.

Let me never be far from consecrated places.
Let what comes to be, be what should.
Let the shadow of Saint Peter rest on me.