Flying Buttress

BETWEEN the gold of the cross
And the clay of the crypts —
Beneath the flutter of birds
And the words in the apse —
Stone hunches its shoulders
With elbows akimbo.

Against knaves of the wind,
Against angels unshriven,
Against the hours of evil
And the palsy of earth —
The knuckles are bunched
In the hidden boulders.

Under pillars of faith,
Under shafts of the sunlight,
Under praise of the humble —
The torso is hunched
With crookt arms of granite
Lest the gargoyles tumble
And Lucifer boast
How Heaven was lost.