Sunday
Few contemporary religious poets cause my heart to soar as much as Malcolm Guite. I recently came across a lovely poem he wrote about a small rural church in Hatley St. George in southeast England. His description reminds me of the small churches in Wales that Julia and I visited a few years ago in hamlets where her grandmother’s ancestors had lived.
A photo of the 14th century church shows a clear window above the altar looking out at “a beech tree’s tender green,” which Guite describes as “holy, open space.” “Stand here awhile,” he instructs us, “and drink the silence in.”
The medieval church is dedicated to St. George, whose feast day was ten days ago, and in his notes Guite distinguishes between the patriotism of “nationalist rhetoric” and “aggrandizing imperial history” and the patriotism of loving “the little particularities of my native land” and “the patchwork of little parishes and quiet shires.” Although the church features “shields of forgotten chivalry, and rolls/ Of honor for the young men gunned at Ypres,” Guite is not interested in Henry V’s “Cry ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George!’” to his Agincourt troops. Instead, he bids us think of all the saints and souls
Who stood where you stand, to be blessed like you;
Clouds of witness to unclouded light
Shining this moment, in this place for you.
Guite senses, as we sensed in those Welsh churches, that such places hold secrets that we would have access to if only we would open ourselves to them. “This empty church,” he writes, “is full,/ Thronging with life and light your eyes have missed.”
The poem was written during the Covid shutdown so the poet may well have death on the mind. If we remain quiet and attentive, he assures us, we may feel the flicker of an angel’s wing and find our hearts flying free at last in prayer.
Hatley St. George; A Poem for St. George’s Day
By Malcolm Guite
Stand here a while and drink the silence in.
Where clear glass lets in living light to touch
And bless your eyes. A beech tree’s tender green
Shimmers beyond the window’s lucid arch.
You look across an absent sanctuary;
No walls or roof, just holy, open space,
Leading your gaze out to the fresh-leaved beech
God planted here before you first drew breath.Stand here awhile and drink the silence in.
You cannot stand as long and still as these;
This ancient beech and still more ancient church.
So let them stand, as they have stood, for you.
Let them disclose their gifts of time and place,
A secret kept for you through all these years.
Open your eyes. This empty church is full,
Thronging with life and light your eyes have missed.Stand here awhile and drink the silence in.
Shields of forgotten chivalry, and rolls
Of honor for the young men gunned at Ypres,
And other monuments of our brief lives
Stand for the presence here of saints and souls
Who stood where you stand, to be blessed like you;
Clouds of witness to unclouded light
Shining this moment, in this place for you.Stand here awhile and drink their silence in.
Annealed in glass, the twelve Apostles stand
And each of them is keeping faith for you.
This roof is held aloft, to give you space,
By graceful angels praying night and day
That you might hear some rumor of their flight
That you might feel the flicker of a wing
And let your heart fly free at last in prayer.
