The incantations of the morning
rose with the mist
among the open walls
and cast-about ruins of the facade.

No alleluias
drifted from the chancel,
silenced long ago.
Yet, a whisper crept past
my ear to look up
at the garden wall, past
where roses once stood.

The sun met skewed blossoms
growing from the mortar,
casting shadows.

Here, something built
to extol eternal majesty,
a victim to weathering and decay.
Now, its fragments and remains
laid bare to anchor wildflowers,
set there by circumstances,
in gaps and sills of battered stone.