A Candle Going Out

Inside an empty church
The last candle’s going out
With no one to relight it,
No soul to be found
As the stained-glass saints
Continue looking down
Judging with unseeing eyes
Sneering with a frown

The pews disused and empty
No hymns do fill these halls
Just oppressive silence
Contained within the walls
While the dust upon the alter
Rests like a funeral pall
If heard a plaintive cry for help
What God would heed its call?

The dying light plays softly
Over the martyred son
Shrouding him in shadows
From the cross he carried once
As the flame is snuffed
Finality has come
And the cult of “progress”
Has another battle won

The church falls to disrepair
And ruin creeps within
A cycle has repeated
As it will again
For against the march of time
Nothing else can win
And something new will take its place
To burden you with “sin”

Inside an empty church
There’s a candle going out…