A poem for "Dissonance and Harmony" – Denison 2006 First Year Program theme

(This is almost an appendix to the poem series down further at http://epicycles.blogspot.com/2004/10/public-faith-23-poems-on-stepping-back.html but doesn't work as well on the computer screen. You have to a) know Swasey Chapel, and b) be able to see the whole page at once. Print it out, if you like, for the full effect.)

Buzzards and Wrens on Swasey Chapel

A
Wren
Wrenched
Out of context
A tower of
Twisting forms,
Shape to shape,
Cupola to circle,
Circle to square,
Square to octagon,
Octagon to ornament,
Ornaments to urns:
Architectural history
From stage to stage.
Out of the London
Great Fire of 1666
Rebuilt churches
From many models
Sir Christopher planned;
Renewal & innovation all
Centering on St. Paul’s Cathedral,
Skyline spanning mighty dome
Supporting a golden Orb & Cross.
Here, perhaps, an academic exercise, turning
The flow of Anglican liturgy into the broad
River of Baptist history, free thought and
Congregational design. But a place for
All to worship, or just to listen, given by
The hand of a scientist turned businessman,
Telescope maker and instrument designer,
Ohio Baptist and American original.
Ambrose Swasey, whose questioning
Mind had to have looked into the saint
With his name, a bishop of Milan, Italy,
Mentor of Augustine and Catholic hero.
Did he look as he would into an eyepiece
Seeing far and considering fairly what he
Saw? Did he offer his share in a chapel to
Open a door to Protestant and Catholic,
Anglican and Methodist, even to minds
Whose free-thinking led them beyond the
Walls of orthodoxy? He built next door a
Tower whose top was an eye carefully made
To calmly survey the heavens, to see what is
There to be seen, and record the sight. So I would
Think that Ambrose, like Christopher, would rest
On the same inscription: "Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice"