Capriccio on a Gothic Theme
Or
You light up my face.
On Friday of this week I went into church to do Morning Prayer, the sun had not been up long and was still very low in the sky. It was one of those bright and clear winter mornings that chill the body but inspire the mind. Progressing down the nave I noticed the sun had illuminated a gargoyle, the light in the church was a subdued soft silver grey apart from that one patch of gold on his face. The gargoyle was at the top of a column just beneath the beginning of the arc of an arch. He has a companion with whom he has joined tongues in a strange knot, but the light was only falling on him. The sunshine was streaming across the church through a window in the South Aisle opposite, a window that is partially obscured by a grand monument to some long dead wealthy land owner. Such was the delicate alignment of the universe, the light of the sun traveling tens of millions of miles, the orbit of the earth, the east – west orientation of the church building, the shape of the window and monument, and the placement of the gargoyle, for that moment his face was lit up. This would surely happen only once a year, and had been happening for centuries, the gargoyle’s moment in the sun. Maybe it is like it this morning, but I don’t do Morning Prayer in church on a Saturday and I doubt there is anyone there to see. I suppose if it is cloudy the gargoyle is disappointed and must wait another year for his annual illumination. Still, I suspect a year is not such a long time in the life of a gargoyle.
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