The Sailors’ Church

by Fiona Vigo Marshall

We came down the steps, Jacob’s ladder,

From cliff-top to harbour,

Full of chatter and human turmoil:

Pattering down the steps of concrete,

So hard the sea will never wash them away,

Down to the Sailors’ Church

Moored there at water’s edge.

Friendly but stern, its huge open

Whale mouth door says:

Be still and know that I am God.

Stilled, we tiptoe beneath the inscription

That rolls above our heads like the everlasting waves.

Suddenly we are at sea

In this ship lunging under water,

Full of light, its doors wide to autumn,

Open to all.

The ghost sailors sitting silent in the pews

Cannot bear to be shut in

From the spray and wind

Tearing round the silence.

I take a cautious seat at the edge

Not to disturb the invisible congregation

Pondering eternity in shafts of sealight,

The white bouquets pitching and rocking

Above the altar.

I am superfluous here,

As I was on the cliff-top,

Disruptive, unwelcome —

Be still and know that I am God.

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Fiona Vigo Marshall’s poems have been published in a variety of outlets including Aesthetica, Ambit, Orbis, and Theology Journal. Her short story “The Street of Baths” won the V.S. Pritchett Memorial Prize 2016, and her story “The Marvellous Book,” Phantom Drift 2017, was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her novel Find Me Falling is published by Fairlight Books, Oxford, 2019, and her second novel, The House of Marvellous Books, is published by Fairlight Books, spring 2022.