Absent

                                                                     Abandoned churches

Dear reader, 

The photographs today are to do with the poem 'Absent'.  I was walking alone in France years ago, miles from anywhere, when I came across an ancient church, dilapidated and rather scary.  I couldn't stop thinking about it and wrote the poem when I finally found my way back to the house we were renting.  What is it about empty buildings that have been used for joyful occasions and sorrowful ones? It is the left emotions I suppose, and that time passes for us all and what have we left. Well, our memories play a part, of course, and in this age, photographs and all sorts of things are exposed on our telephones, (about which I know very little!) But I had an enormous feeling of sadness while I was exploring the church and thought sadness must still be in the air.

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Can one fall out of love a little with a place as opposed to a person?  We went to Lyme Regis again last week and I can't say it was a great success this time.  The weather was horrendous, rain bucketing down, a mist covering the view (which we went for) and the hotel was freezing.  I caught a chill as I had taken summer clothes when I should have taken clothes right for a November visit. And then the journeys. We have hardly been out of our nearby villages for over a year and and I was terrified on the M5 motorway.  Large trucks passing large trucks and cars hurtling by until I was about to have a panic attack and asked Francis to leave the motorway.  Then we got lost. Bloody satnav.

So our new life from now onwards is staying here, only foraging out to Witney or Chipping Norton.  And the relief at this  decision is enormous.

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Absent

In this spectral place
there is a sense of desolation,
of God not being here
that strikes icy cold.
In the dank, dark nave
lies a decomposing owl,
a cobwebbed confessional, worn rotten,
and on the battered altar
a smashed wooden cross.

Long ago, did sunlight venture through
the cracked, ruby-stained glass window?
Were bread and wine transformed
into Christ's body and blood?
Did young men, expectant, marry
young women, kiss, and breathe in
the churchyard's sweet summer air?
And did tears blow away unseen
in the southern mistral winds,
after a service testifying that life was here
in this absent place?

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With very best wishes, Patricia