93 - The Spire Next Door

The Spire Next Door
By Roy Shepard

It makes its point
directly, but does not come
to it too quickly,

for this steeple is high.

No doubt the altitude is due
as much to pretense
as to reverence;
to the degree of its pride
this steeple is diminished

and blunted.

Still it says we have something
in us that will not settle

but will aspire.

Though we may not see
the point, we look up as if
to find reason for one foot

in front of another.

Roy Shepard has been engaged in various interim ministries for the United Church of Christ, among them the First Congregational Church in St. Joseph, Michigan. It is the steeple of First Church, which he could observe through his window next door, of which he writes in this poem.