In memoriam Mrs Browning
When I described to you Kilpeck Church
—my parents having dragged my twelve-year self to visit—
I doubt I had much to say about decoding ecclesiastical architecture.
I might have mentioned the carved Norman arch over the south door,
but skipped the probable Celtic origins, corbel of pig with man in mouth,
the Pugin glass, a Sheela-na-gig, and dedications to St Mary and St David.
I suppose that most of what I had to say concerned the What I’d felt inside,
because you gave me something that approached a side eye, your slant
perceiving an encounter with the Holy. I’m reading from a later place of faith—
though now I wonder if my twelve-year self stood one foot in that faith
in Kilpeck nave. A necessary presence, traced in glass and stone, in me
these forty years. Back or forth in time—which way do echoes carry?
Clare Bryden “Kilpeck Church”, Theology, Volume 128, Issue 3, 23 May 2025.
Poetry. (2025). Theology, 128(3), 207-210. https://doi.org/10.1177/0040571X251335515 (Original work published 2025)