Monster

He stands alone, enormous greystone arms across his navel,

Colossal beast of Swift's Brobdingnag, condescending

To righteous Lilliput, flung like a hand of gravel

Around his feet; tiny houses housing tiny people who cradle

The distant organ that plays the first bars of The Lark Ascending.

 

A rough-hewn monster drips moss from his back, slicked black slate

Displays quaint hints of inner Paradise. The rain begins to pour again,

Slashing old stones to blazing parchment, the clerestories shimmer like silver plate.

Saint James trips on his cobbled churchyard, stumbles in, once more too late

To sell cockle shells: “Comes in handy for a Rising, they lets you shun the pain”.

 

I found a starling lying at his feet in halves, rent as neat as if tailors' scissors

Had done the deed, but I was wrong. It was the work of a peregrine falcon

Stooping to feed her demanding chicks. Open mouthed, small lizards

And the ancient verger check for surviving offspring after last night's blizzard

But find no trace. The creaking steeple sways in the freezing eastwind, a malcontent.

 

The monster, his silent stiletto dagger proud to challenge the weak who fear;

His towering dominion outlasts the softening light of evening, so gentle

Her daily whispers that warn the giant against the sin of pride, making clear

The price to pay for arrogating to himself the right to seize the day. Sere

sit the faithful, all around stride Gothic pillars, faith being purely accidental.

 

Chris Hubbard

2020