A Poem in the Afternoon.

My poems emerge from fog

images indistinct.

Piece by painful piece

born of sweat and toil.

Caution stonemason at work.

Each stone measured, fitted,

integral to the whole.

Words come slow.

No whiff of fox just heavy lifting

akin to Leonardo

sketching, shifting,

constantly  changing.

As Charters architects seeding

scriptures in glass,

the medium the message.

Let the true light shine in

so those inside might be enlightened.

No overall plan in mind

they labored for the glory of God,

then drank cheep wine, and wench’d. 

Without knowing

centuries later camera clicking Japanese

would crowd in wonder. 

My thoughts as dust in a shaft of light,

swirling in dance,

deliberate then dissipate.

An afternoon spent child like

wrestling with words.

One man went to mow

went of mow a meadow.

Seeds I scatter fall on fallow ground,

as valuable to me

as the king his crown.

Birth pains long remembered.

Who was it said

the shadow of the scaffold 

concentrates the mind.

An afternoon in contemplation.

Past my allotted time

I linger in the shade of St Luke’s

Liverpool, not Charters,

no matter the late hour

there is life in the light yet,

to banish darkness.

Ken Setter

Sydney

2008 ©