Cold Comfort

A spirit rose from the earth
 Slowly leaving...
 Their candle-flame lonely, and so needing
 Like dust in the night the prayers rise
 Under the sick image of Christ
 They talk to the nothingness
 Old wounds were never mended

 Something drops from the (autumn) leaves
 Again it rains:
 In a dry corner, salvation again declines
 Sleep like a skull in the hard ground
 Nothing for ears nothing for eyes
 Without a shadow, waiting for nothing
 The dark room, the moist tenement (of earth)

 The cold kiss of release, great light
 He was never man enough
 In a world of cruel faces
 He discovered that he was never man enough
 He discovered nothing
 Far above and beyond...
 All in the name of god
 The eyes refused to look ahead...