Notes About The Poem

old church

[ hear the song ]

The Downfall of a Homeless Church

Listen to poem:
Decay gnaws at a country church.
It's homeless; it's lost its congregation.
Molting stones crumble, eroding away.
Mice nibble at the altar.
Winds twine through cracks.
Rain and dew drip through. 
Roof slates slip down.
Each year it's more decrepit.
As nature slowly moves in.

Edges made to endure,
fracture, collapsing into rubble.
Plinths and buttresses
forsake their faith.
Agnostic shadows creep in.
As nature resumes,
its inscrutable ways.

Bells corrode into silence.
Tongues stilled in the throat of dome.
Hymns survive only as echoes in 
whistling drafts through splintered rafters.
The pews sag like tired suspenders,
long unbent in prayer.

Rain scrawls psalms on walls,
scripted in mildew and moss.
Stained glass panels drop down
into the rubbish and weeds.
Crossbeams become bird-nest perches,
for swallows and doves, now the choir.

This homeless house of God laments
in the nettles, thorns and briers.
Seeking nature’s absolution
for its forsaken ruin.
A scar upon the land.
A desolate homeless being.
A blot on the earth.
Copyright © | Year Posted 2025


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Date: 9/25/2025 10:43:00 AM
Too sad for me but well written! So glad my church is alive and thriving. Oh that people would believe.
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Anderson Avatar
John Anderson
Date: 9/25/2025 11:09:00 AM
It is very sad when faith in material things fades in this way. Cheers,
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