Elevenses

Elizabeth Redgate, until recently a volunteer in the Coffee Room, has passed this poem on to us from a friend of hers.

Buses green, Big Issue-sellers, buskers
Scurrying cars, customers co-mingling
Through countless squares, streets, stores,
Colouring city centre life
Among persons pacing purposefully
The many unrelenting pavements and shops
Urging persistent patrons to buy,
Confused by changing choice style
Merchandise and marketed temptation.

Until then, craving for elevenses
Yearning for seats and sustenance
There, hard by the entrance to Marks and Sparks
Some climb up the steps to good St Peter’s
Pristine modern spotless Parish Centre.
Bright light beech-wood pastel and chrome,
Where cheerful Christian souls
Serve teas and coffees, scones and cake
Rather like some that Mother made,
In calmness uninterrupted
By strident vocals or canned classics
To those content to quietly converse,
Emotionally moved by the beauty
Of an old stone church with sunlight
Flooding the flagged graveyard, framed by
Daffodils and branches drooping,
Their buds emerging imperceptibly
Witnessing yet the perpetual cycle;
Seeing through an open gothic doorway
To a lofty shaded inner sanctum.
Tranquil, its oaken pews and stained-glass saints
Hallowed by endless invocations
Asking life’s question of all who would see.

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