At the Old Stone Church

On visiting the ruins in West Boylston

The road curved north beside the reservoir,

its shoulders strewn with leaves the color of war -

bronze, russet, gold, their tumbling release

a final flare before the season’s peace.

Frost silvered fields. The air was thin and clear.

Each breath I took made autumn feel more near.

I’d come to see what time had chosen well -

a church of stone that rose where others fell.

They moved the town before the floods were made;

they paid the Baptists well to clear the land.

The water board came with careful hand,

but nothing stilled what lingered here...

a breath that lives beyond the last amen.

Inside, the light was soft and thin as breath,

a pale inheritance untouched by death.

No pew remained, no altar, yet the floor

still seemed to hum with footsteps from before.

The lake beyond was calm, the trees were flame,

each mirrored hue a whisper of its name.

And standing there, I felt the quiet claim

that beauty bears the shape of what it tames.

The air was bright with endings. All around,

the hush of faith still clung to stone and ground.

No bell remained to mark the hour’s descent,

yet something in that silence felt intent -

as if the world had built this house for sound

and left it open, emptied, still profound.

The walls stood wide to weather and to sky;

the doors received whatever passed them by.

No choir sang. No prayer broke the delay.

Only the water moved, then slipped away.

I stood and listened…nothing, everywhere.

The silence rose, immense, and drew me in.

GBS

2024