Cloister Ghosts

Cloister Ghosts

Christian Owen

The huge and solemn company of clouds
Around the steeple, sombre and unchanging
Against the red sky, making an enormous palace
Of dome and vault and arch and airy gallery.

The restless passions of the violent wind
Have moved the tower to a soft and swaying tune,
Like the swift bow-strokes of a cellist drawing
Music from sleeping strings that touch his ear.

But though the dwellers in the cloudy palace
Change not their positions, and the celestial chapel
Holds its memorials of its departed worshippers
Who died so long ago, I know that, still,

A current is established from the heart to the chancel,
And I see that there are chaplains who are not seen,
And, with the poet, I must think of these men
As spying from those windows of the soul

Where coloured suns shine in the leaded glass
And the carved pinnacles and parapets
Show the rich work of those adventurous hands
That reared such wonders for the love of God.

For there will be ghosts and they will be stirring
As long as the chapels in our hearts are alive.

---

Christian Owen
Poet & Student

Christian is a British poet based in Cambridge. While pursuing a doctorate in history, he writes poems exploring themes of faith, loss, identity, and belonging in a fractured world.

Photography by Craig Whitehead