Terce Poems | Examples

Saving the Cathedral 2

With every Bannockburn there comes a Boyne.
The gods grant grain, alleviate our lives,
then send us weevils, whitefly, worms (and wives!)
They raise us up – then knee us in the groin

vaulting. Winchester was built on bog.
This marvel of the medieval mind
was sitting on (they were appalled to find),
nine hundred-year-old spongy, soggy logs. 

And, year on year, it sagged a little more.
As fissures felt their way around the font,
and lancet windows listed to the west,
so flawed at lauds, and worse at terce for sure:

now none at nones was feeling nonchalant.
The church was sinking slowly to its rest.