Looking lovingly at a painting by Constable
With a slow moving stream in the foreground
And a man about to get into a boat,
Salisbury Cathedral in the background
Its magnificent spire rising to meet the sky.

In a hundred years will these monuments
To religion, power, weath still stand stately
Against the incoming tide of the new world
To transmit a meaning?
And if we be spiritual beings where can we fly?

Can we be welcomed, cared for, listened to
In a world lost in fiscal concerns, selfish, predatory.
And a chair to bear our burdens in the quietness
Of an afternoon light,
Carried by the sun through stainglass.

Or on a hillside be humbled by a simple cross
A clunp of earth filled with flowers.
Let us think why and what it is we need
So that those churches owned by power
Wealth and history become owned by us all.

Love Mary ***