EMPTY ECHOES

(And I ask myself, is this The Rock?)
My imposing gothic notion runs down like an old clock
As I wander through the airy, shining space that is modernity.
(Where are the lungs of praise, the forever and ever, the eternity?)
The laminated missals and magic trinkets are all locked away;
But for the dapper young priest, this church is quite empty.

(And is this The Rock?)
Amid these villas and trees, this smooth suburban symmetry
Is more in the manner of a theatre ‘in the round’, really,
(Where is the power and the glory?).
Here is only sound without fury
And a stage is just a stage sans audience
And the priest merely an actor sans his flock:
This place is mere oblivion with exits and entrances.

(But sans everything, is this still The Rock?)
The bricks and glass and wood are so clean, immaculately;
No encroaching tenements come hunching here, bleak and swarthy.
Beyond the altar and candlesticks
Lies the box of tricks, the communion of mystery,
And the priest says, ‘He is in there…’
(The Host, The Real Presence, The Corpus Christi)
As if to wind me up, tick-tock.

(But I tell myself, this is not The Rock)
This clock is beyond repair, atrophied with age
In its last hour of all, its second childishness.
Nevertheless, the priest begins to prepare the stage:
He switches on the candles and lowers his eyes,
But I see no curtain rise.


(1977)


A more specific version of ‘Myth And Legend’ (see below) and written around the same time. My mother used to say that, as a small child, I was frightened by the sight of churches… At this time, I hadn’t yet developed the agnostic fascination with them that I have today.


This poem was inspired by a field trip to a modern Catholic church in Leicester as part of the Religious Studies course I was doing at college. I later realized the place was modelled on the Catholic cathedral in Liverpool (affectionately known by locals as ‘Paddy’s Wigwam’, its four bells representing the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John’ likewise being known as ‘John, Paul, George & Ringo’. The picture of the altar was taken there).

Reading T.S. Eliot had shown me that it was possible to use material from other sources without actually plagiarizing and in this poem I enjoyed experimenting with ideas and phrases drawn from Shakespeare to point up the analogy of the church as theatre.