Still Life

Over thirty years in the making,

Though not really painstaking,

Just shopping,

And in the end a moment’s chopping.

Light falls through the window, left,

A Scotch egg, cleft,

No stalled ox here, served with hate,

Just salad on a celadon plate,

Magenta onion beside,

A Vestment cupboard, black and wide,

An Aumbry 17th century, oak,

Another ecclesiastical find,

A Bible box, is this a joke?

I did not realise I’d made it,

Just bought it,loved it and displayed it,

And even the refectory table,

Brings monks to mind

And God born in a stable,

Who’d feed five thousand in one sitting.

Church furniture is rather fitting,

This fact I feel must be admitted, 

In a kitchen quite unfitted,

But are free standing things heretical?

Or is all that too theoretical?

A rustic linen cloth is spread,

But sadly no fresh, blest white bread,

Instead a few Ryvitas do,

A slice of meat and Shropshire blue.

The candle sticks are not in shot,

But bring more God to this strange spot,

A Tazza, one form, turned parts, three,

It’s timber, Christ the apple tree,

And huge wood bowl with apples in,

To tempt this Eve to eat and sin,

And offer Adam take a bite,

And taste the sweet and sour delight,

Forgetting implants and veneers,

White, bright, civilisation thin,

In this old setting like Vermeer’s

A mule chest, against the wall,

A donkey watching from a stall?

It’s 18th century arches pointed,

The gothic ears of asses

With drips of cooking oil anointed,

Above, a cupboard full of glasses,

Tumblers mostly, some for wine,

Sufficient for the way we dine,

On cold collations puritanical

Or catholic and ecumenical?

For grub is grub, the whole world o’er,

And Jesus proved that less is more.

I’d better buy a tabernacle,

In which to store some modern tackle.