Second: Christine Jaritz December Bulwark re St. John's Minster


November lowers heavily onto you, dark Monolith Gale winds toss the sparse hawthorn hips outside your walls Glowing red into a dark evening light of nothingness they starkly forbode the coming month.


A month when your candles will celebrate the cause of our being When, swaddled and warm, the child will come again A testament to our deeply painful human condition A soporific based on a lovely, but artificial, lie.


From the neighbouring street your stone rose window looks out lmmovably set and looking onto a locked gate A gate which in December will open to the populace and the rose will give a glow onto the heavy drifts of snow


ln December white drifts will surround your bulwarks and the crows nests hang isolated in those bent hawthorn boughs The locked gate will then open to greet the frozen populace your chalice shining silvery, your cold air becoming fragrant and warm.


Oh, open the gate, open the locked door Oh, Fathers David, Nick and Tim together with mother Katherine Administer comfort to the masses finally Some comfort from within your walls of silvery warmth


And so, on 24th December the populace will pass through Young couples happily and aspirationally hand in hand will tread the snow into nothingness beneath their feet and old persons may warm themselves in your rosy glow.


And so, on 24th December your Duty is done - is finally fulfilled Oh, soporific of the masses, be kind to them - from beyond your locked gate.


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