Through A Window (Poetry)

Once, it held a vision in stained glass,
but now this arch of stone frames opal sky,
the valley’s sides a-gleam with rain-soaked grass
as lush as when the abbey’s walls rose high
and monks, upon their holy business bent,
prayed long beside its glowing ornament.

An open mouth the wild west winds blow through,
it can’t keep either weeds or weather out —
moss creeps across its sill, the bramble, too,
invites itself inside and grows devout,
while ruins wait as lilac dusk draws in
and filters light through cloud spread low and thin.

Then, through this portal, carried on the sigh
of nocturnal winds that find their refuge here,
a chant of voices hovers, floats on high,
pours its benediction, faint but clear,
as candleglow illuminates old glass
and colours this ghost-window on the past.