The Arch

(The first draft of which was written in Wesley Memorial Church while

taking refuge there during a hectic Christmas shopping trip)

In the silently flawless

Curve of the arch

Is the whispering trace

Of echoing blows,

Of long-buried men

Who hammered and sang,

Of a forebear who carved

To a hard-graft polish

And smiled at the feel

Of a work-roughened hand

On the smoothness of stone

That felt like the skin

Of a sensual thought.

Perhaps, like us,

He was chiselled in the form

Of a mere struggling mortal,

Yet still saw the graceful

In random rock…

But now he is weightless

With dust in his stead

And offspring of offspring

Step under the weight

Of evidence made,

Of his skilled earthly toil,

That still yet defies all gravity.