Villevieille

The church is very still.

True, I don’t believe,

but after all

centuries of love

and misery have sought

here in the blank of loss

ways to live with it,

a path towards peace.

Sought, and sometimes found.

Peace is present here,

as though what some have gained

informs this air

Peace is won, though, from

effort.  This still

place affords me room

to think as well as feel,

to study what I owe

and how it might be paid

in part—a penny in

each generous pound?

This and this I see

there for me to do,

work I owe to love

and might achieve.

Not much, not enough,

but make a start with these

breathed from the stillness of

this vaulted space.