The long green weeks stretch out past Pentecost,
And Trinity Sunday a preacher's fading nightmare.
Churches yawn and settle back. Ordinary Time.
We ditch the stringencies of Lent,
The chocolate fasts, the dogged home group chats,
And shelve Ascension's awkward exegesis –
Visions of plaster feet beneath a cloud.
Trinity 3, Trinity 4 – a time to fill
With stopgap sermon schemes and stand-alones –
A fleeting time for picnics, feasts and clubs.
Trinity 7, Trinity 8 – time out of time;
An everwhen to dream of better ways,
To think in colour, glimpse a world less drab –
Until the Tower of Sundays grows too high.
Trinity 19, 20 – a toppling tower;
Lest we should reach to heaven, the countdown starts:
3 before Advent, 2, and churches wake,
And warm up for the routine annual battle
Of tinsel versus tiny infant icon,
Of Santa versus et in terra pax.
