To hatch, to match and to despatch, <br />Those clichéd words, so glibly said <br />To total all this ruin’s worth, <br />To bless the bride, to shrive the dead. <br /> <br />To christen infants and to be, <br />To all who sought a comfort sure, <br />A barque of safety on that sea <br />That laps at last on Heaven’s shore. <br /> <br />But now no longer do these walls <br />Give back the chant of psalm or hymn <br />No more will flickering candles light <br />The pilgrim’s way through shadows dim. <br /> <br />The congregation now is changed <br />A different choir its songs now sing <br />As drunken men and women too <br />Pass meths around a ragged ring. <br /> <br />But surely these, these wounded ones, <br />With battered face and battered mind <br />Are welcome in the home of He <br />Who gave His life for Humankind. <br /> <br />For were He here and with us now <br />Where would He go, where would He walk? <br />With those who suffer, those who hurt? <br />Or those whose Charity is talk. <br /> <br />Perhaps this building, gaunt and grim, <br />With roofless walls, with gaping door, <br />Has now at last fulfilled its fate, <br />To be a refuge for the poor.<br /><br />Michael Morris<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/an-abandoned-church/
