Roof

Out of the rattling jangling office
to dodge through the bustle and the lunch-time traffic;
hurry down Houndsgate, past the deli
and the empty 'phone shop with the kicked-in window
(mind the kids on the church steps with their take-away McDonald's)
and in.

RoofAhhh!

God, who lives up in that wonderful dark old roof
(and I don't care what anybody says)
God reaches down
and loves me.

There's no mid-day service here today,
just God and me and as much time as we need;
time to find that "the still point of the turning earth"
is now - eat-in or take-away.
The wild and unimaginable moving of the cosmos
(earthquake, angel, harebell and
the birth and death of stars)
is here most delicately poised in pure and subtle stillness;
stillness clear as the waters of life,
deep as a thousand years of prayer.

The infinite, in all simplicity, is here;
eternity is now;
while up among the angel corbels
and clerestory windows
from the darkness shines the mystery of God.

And all the windows' upward-pointing fingers,
full of bustling city, full of light,
like all reality and all of revelation,
point us deeper into God and into mystery.

Richard Evans

Richard expands on his feelings in The roof of St Peter's


http://www.stpetersnottingham.org/poem/roof.htm
© St Peter's Church, Nottingham
Last revised 1st April 1999