Sunday School – Agnus Dei

Columba Canticles –

  1. Kyrie – The Choir Vestry
  2. Gloria in Excelsis
  3. The Chapter House
  4. The Nave – The Bell Tower
  5. Sanctus
  6. Sunday School – Agnus Dei

Until I was fifteen
I went every seventh day
Summer and winter
Together with relations
And neighbours
To Sunday School
In a field-defended church.
At one time a tall cousin
Taught me,
Then sometime later
A young butcher from the town.
One framed text
Violated the emptiness
Behind the place
Where the Preacher stood
(we used no grander titles)
during the evening meeting.
There was no chart to map out
High Days or Holy Days,
There was no bell
To bring us in
There was no organ
To lift us up
There was no glass, cunningly,
To strain and guide into pigments
The light that fell upon the wooden
Floor, that draped
Across the rows of hard-wood chairs.
Light washing the walls
Illuminating this message
Nailed up there as a warning,
Christ died to Save the World.

Poem – Sam Burnside