Churchbat
By Daniel Janeiro - Ordinary Time/All Saints 2011
Here is a bat, come eerily to grope
The heavenly cathedral dome with sound,
As easily at home with, now, the nave,
Vaulted with arches corbelling the cope,
Now with the pillars which it flits around,
As with the hellish grandeur of a cave.
Little alarms it here. Though incense wraps
Diaphonous chains around its veers, it feels
No fetter, and though it seldom appears
To blot the slant daylight, its squiggling laps
Breeze by the altar candles and scrawl wheels
Beneath the glowing pendant chandeliers.
Little gargoyle, shrieking shard of stone,
What does it mean to us that you have come
Alive in here? What is it that you seek?
Teach us to cry out, that, when you have gone
To shout into the night's superior dome,
We may have no more need of stones to speak.