Refuge by Michael Tolkien

HALLOWED GROUND
    If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels but have not love
    I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal
(I Corinthians, 13, 1)
    1
. ON YOUR HIGH HORSE
    Chapel’s celebrating four hundred years
    of scripture translated. Committee so much
    wants you to take part. Well-known piece,
    please, and any version you like.
    Delighted !
How could you refuse?
    Parted tongues of fire light your way
    to Pentecost. ACTS, Chapter Two.
    Might even fill them with Holy Spirit,
    to find there’s no foreign speech,
    all words God’s from time immemorial.
    Must be the
King James
mustn’t it?
    Took unnumbered scholars eleven years,
    rhetoric that rings with spoken sinew,
    a voice for ever crying in the wilderness
    to make straight the way of the Lord.
    You’ll stroll from pew to brass Eagle wings
    where rests heavy tome sanctified
    by years of blackening thumbs and fingers.
    Find the place with reverence while noses blow
    throats clear and shuffling feet fall still.
    2
. DAY OF RECKONING
    Airy shibboleths must give way
    to what to wear and whether to tuck
    that tight-packed quarto in coat pocket
    or clutch and swing it to announce
    the Lord’s Day and where you’re duly bound.
    Unspectacular you scatter gravel
    beside chequered, boldly-buttoned coats
    and very practical handbags, filing in
    by the narrow way, eye of the needle
    into the fold of sheep the shepherd knows.
    Not prepared for no-nonsense white-wash?
    No hymnal, nothing to bow to, no pulpit
    to declaim the Word interpreted.
    A monitor displays the first hymn.
    You’ll sound like an over-piped organ.
    All about you, sedate on creaking chairs
    a genial crowd whose tucked-in postures
    and hairdos bristle against airs and graces.
    A modest book-rest on chrome pillar
    awaits you with your fancy notions,
    you with God’s word and rows of patient faces
    whose muscles would scarcely twitch if
    Cretans and Arabians spoke in their own
    day-to-day tongue the Lord’s mighty works.
    Be thankful for your words. Mouth them well.
    One of the crowd at last you sing
    a hymn with gusto till a shirt-sleeved preacher
    preludes with glosses, then performs
    from a Cockney New Testament
    the miracle at the feast in Cana of Galilee.

OUR MAN IN THE OBERLAND
    Kein weltlich Getümmel
    hö
r
t man nicht in Himmel!...
(Des Knaben Wunderhorn)
    Soon to move on to another resort
    he calls
Greendelvowelled
, he’s solo
    at a patio table picking at a punnit
    of raspberries. “Hard to deal with
    heavy meals here. So good
    to sit with alpine panoramas. I get
    strains from Mahler’s 4 th . You know the one
    with that last song about
Heaven
?...”
    We like his easy-care, sober dinner suit,
    robust yet understated hiking kit,
    his cool demand for consultation,
    launching into schemes of ‘heading out’
    with such troubled doubt and rigour,
    we’re in the unknown and
he’s
a pioneer.
    Bleary-eyed at breakfast we’re presented
    with his 3D model relief map.
    “Take it to plan your high-level trek
    above that
tuna-whatsit
lake.” (That’s
    the ice-blue expanse of
Thünersee
)
    “Appreciated your filling me in
    on ways down from that viewpoint
    and how to take that quaint funicular
    from the rail station by the river.
    Noticed it’s upgraded year by year!
    So what do you guys do back home?”
    Retired!
We can’t be serious! Active couple
    like us must be mid-40s at most!
    Farewell circumstantial buddy,
    our own
Quiet American
!
    There’s no side to you. How come
    you make us feel everything we say
    opens up a whole new dimension?
     
     
     
    NOTE Epigraph taken from the song mentioned in line 8:
    you hear no worldly hubbub in heaven...

DINING
    A threesome hogs sash windows that overlook
    glabrous lawns, Friesans grazing their shadows,
    distant cars glinting like trinkets in low sun.
     
    Club-Blazer-and-Tie breathes heavily over
    his chins, seldom exceeds a phrase in rich, slow voice,
    defers to his melon with a gentle forking,
    lets wife and female crony make the