The Ruined Church

Two echoes. Two
reflected images.
                         Two figures back to back
in facing mirrors.
                         Diminutive, my heroes.
Diminution is at work here
                         on a massive scale.
Somewhere there are more of them,
                         there must be images of these
two men receding to infinity
lost in this aerosol of mist.

The eye can't focus from this broken socket of grey stone,
looking out from which
                         detail and distance vanish in the rain,
hide themselves in insignificance
                         gestating
something of the old gods once again.

Brothers of the rock,
                         they cling to what they know.
For them the mists have cleared.
                         The light
in which they climb -
each in his own way:
the outside man
                         by toe and finger hold
towards his pinnacle;
the other crucified, nailed
to his own rock wall where once the altar stood -
                         is not of sun or stars,
but past and present hold them
in the same
                         poor visibility, the same
cold spray
as each assumes the other's
shade of grey.

In any true perspective
                         one would dwarf the other,
but today the rain has telescoped their worlds
and pooled their true dimensions.

The inside rock was hewn out there.
                         Out there the rock
                         and rock man
seem indifferent
towards my God-man on his cross
                         watching his twin out there across
from him
cocking a snook at the danger.

Out there
the fall
(if there's to be a fall)
                         will seem the greater.

I see no place where church and mountain separate.
West face, East wall:
the rain has welded them together.
How would the inside man have fared,
                         I wonder,
with pitons for support instead of nails?