Sunday, October 20, 2019

Notre Dame de Grange en Etain - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Notre Dame de Grange en Etain

“…a small red flame – a beaten-copper lamp of deplorable design…”

-Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

All greatness is complex and flawed, all truth
Can well be twisted like a dream deferred
Or like a sweat-stained bandaging of shame
In desolation grasped in desperate prayer

All smallness is complex and flawed, all men
Can well be twisted like justice denied
Or like a blood-stained pallium of death
In desolation grasped in desperate prayer

But in shabby buildings and in shabby men
A small red flame still shines among debris




("Notre Dame de Grange en Etain" alludes to contemporary church architecture having the effect of a big tin barn hardware store or lumber supply)

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