Grace Church, Yorktown

Still, colored shadows. It is not
The building that is still, but we
Who stand at twilight by the red-
Stained walls, eroded to curves,

Yet changed by the same hands
That laboriously cut and

Shaped convenient rectangles of
Marl, the leavings of unbelieving
Creatures, accumulated through
The passage, heat, and pressure of years.

The shells, once articulate, bivalve
Dissolving to blunt rock, made the walls

Sufficient to have stayed, but we have
Not the faith to keep them as they
Were placed, through the fallow years
The yard destroyed as the walls.

Blocks, though brown, are red in the
Light of certain sun, like we who shall pass.


By David King
The sixth poem from Virginia Churches, a series of 8 poems on colonial churches.

Copyright 2004 by David King.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry 360 with permission of the author.