A group of children, accompanied by their teachers, waits outside Saint Thomas’s church, eating biscuits and chatting. The church is due to open at 4pm, but the huge wooden doors remain locked. The RE teacher, a big man wearing a black shirt, makes a phone call, shrugs, and eventually guides his congregation away from the church, the sound of merriment receding into the dusty afternoon.
Sparrows peck for hope
at Thomas’s sandalled feet:
finding only dust,
they gather its providence
and fly heavenward.
aplaceforpoetry 
No fair creating a whole new type of posting on me! So let me get this straight…you set the idea up with some short section of prose and then write this very delicate and lovely piece of poetry that fits the prose like a tight kid glove. Whoa! Slow down, my head is spinning. Let’s go through this again…first you start with a some prose which is descriptive but does not explain anything. OK. Then…
Lovely!
A thousand pardons, my friend John, I discovered another passageway in my cave. I mean, there could be anything down here, couldn’t there? 🙂
superb. totally works for me. a once and future story. love it.