The Rain Slipping Off Leaves Onto The Metal Roofs* Poem by Bernard Henrie

The greying plaster of St. Botolph's
is rough to the touch, four windows
cut into the façade where rain slips down.

My soaked Makintosh heavy across
my shoulders. The atrium lined
with electric lights shaped like candles.

Wooden benches hunch on the stone
floor; a dozen have been removed
leaving uneven gaps as when a man
snarls baring rotted teeth to the gums.

The nativity illuminated by a single
beam from the skylight; a chalice
silver as a dinner knife stands ready.

The exposed walls are deeply stained
by soot and long stabs of brown water;
the ancient lead drains blocked
here and there by a leafless branch.

Birds rest and sleep in the upper
sanctorum; Father Legge-Bourke
whispers to an elderly parishioner
and I succumb to memory and desire,
the damp debris of London.

Near the rectory office with its striped
and donated couch, near the futile
space heater, I imagine God sits
hearing prayers.

Now and then God sends out
a puff of warming tobacco smoke
and through the glass, vaporous air
speaks to me.

The pilfering rain lying clean
and white in the cast iron sluice,
an evening frost off the Thames
white on the gold crocus-petals
of St. Botolph’s gown.

*Anne Damrosch