La Collégiale, Guérande

Whatever’s going on outside
it’s peaceful – sun streaming through stained glass
like a message, though of course that’s what
I once was taught
to imagine. I watch believers pray

intrigued too by the sudden way
tourists fall silent as they leave
the tangled, bustling, shop-lined streets,
the summer heat,
awkwardly making the sign of the cross

in what looks to me an almost lost
habit, taking off baseball caps,
dark-glasses, glancing around as they light
candles, not quite
at ease with themselves for doing so

and would indeed prefer to know
nobody’s watching, although of course
should their all-seeing god exist
He certainly is.
And after all, why am I here? –

not for confession’s brief All Clear,
or faith (to find, or mock . . .). Maybe
even while sitting on the fence
there’s still a sense
belief’s not merely a man-made

comfort blanket, or band-aid,
but it’s worth the time to sit and wait
as if such moments might provide
a detailed guide
to – coded in our DNA –

a hard-wired longing which, today
at least, hints at a possible
deeper, shared identity,
and claims to be
a link to something somehow ‘true’

which these stones yearn to rhyme with too.

Tom Vaughan

If you have any thoughts about this poem,  Tom Vaughan  would be pleased to hear them