Church, Chapel, Cathedral

Once I am sure
there’s nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.

Parish of Trinity Church, Trinity Place, New York, NY 10006

Another church: matting, seats, and stone,
And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut
For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,

St Paul's, Deptford High Street, Deptford, Lewisham, SE8

Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence,

St Mary Redcliffe, Colston Parade, Bristol, BS1

Move forward, run my hand around the font.
From where I stand, the roof looks almost new-
Cleaned or restored? Someone would know: I don’t.

St Michan's Church, Church Street, Dublin 7

Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few
Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce
‘Here endeth’ much more loudly than I’d meant.
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

St Mary's Chapel, Holly Walk, Hampstead, Camden, NW3

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,

St Paul's Church, St Paul's Road, Brentford, Middlesex, TW8

Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,
When churches fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate, and pyx in locked cases,

Amber Hiscott's Lantern, Sheffield Cathedral, Church Street, Sheffield, Yorkshire, S1

And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

Shrine to Matt Talbot, Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Sean McDermott Street, Dublin 1

From Philip Larkin’s Church Going

National Museum of the American Indian

From the brow of Hiawatha
Gone was every trace of sorrow,
As the fog from off the water,
As the mist from off the meadow.

George Gustav Heye Center of the National Museum of the American Indian, Alexander Hamilton US Custom House, Bowling Green, Manhattan, New York, New York

With a smile of joy and triumph,
With a look of exultation,
As of one who in a vision
Sees what is to be, but is not,
Stood and waited Hiawatha.

From Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha (1855)

Irish Hunger Memorial

I unswear words, and undo deeds.
Naked things know me.

Brian Tolle's Irish Hunger Memorial, Vesey Street, Battery Park City, New York, New York

I am first and last to be felt of the living.
I am hunger.

From Robert Laurence Binyon’s Hunger (1919)