IN OLD ROMNEY CHURCH

The clock beats, leafy shadows wave
upon a sunlit wall; can all of human history be held
within one moment of a summer's afternoon?
The clock's beat
which bore our planet out of emptiness
will bear it back again - the clouds, the trees,
the birds chattering beyond the window-pane;
yet, growing older, time
is crossed and recrossed constantly with hints
of something else, imbued by every scent and texture
of this ancient place; experience
and dreams, and memories
and new experience attained through art
are more real to me now
than time and space
and shadows of reality we move among