Dust

She kneels once more in the dust,
placing her forehead against the cold wood,
and thinks again of the Sabbaths of long ago,
of the uncomfortably respectable old black suits,
of Mrs Protheroe in her blue hat
with the gauze, and that big pin to hold it,
of the voices ringing round, the sacred songs and solos,
and of the prayers and pauses,
the sermonising words and the long and holy silences.

It had all seemed so solid, then,
such sure foundations, so bound to stand firm, so set for ever.

She kneels where she has always knelt,
nearly eighty years of song and fervent prayer.
She had always wanted to grow old in this place,
but in that same lost world, and not in this;
with the next generation around her,
and not alone, or almost so.

She does not look up;  better to imagine
those long ago faces, those sure and certain things
that are now, for the most part,
reduced to the dust in which she kneels.