The Parish Where No Morning Comes

The Parish Where No Morning Comes

The bell had long since lost its tongue,

Yet still the tower leaned to speak,

A hollow throat of broken stone,

That held the wind like buried grief.

Across the fields no cattle moved,

No children ran, no voices called,

Only the frost that clung like sin,

And would not melt, nor turn away.

The path was worn by years of feet,

Now left to weeds and bitter root,

Each step once carried hope or fear,

Now neither word nor prayer remained.

The chapel door hung loose and wide,

A mouth that swallowed what drew near,

And in its dark the air stood still,

As though afraid to wander on.

Inside, the pews were bowed with time,

Their wood split thin like ageing bone,

No hymn had warmed their aching grain,

For God had turned His gaze aside.

A widow knelt where dust had formed,

Her dress a shadow on the floor,

Her hands were clasped but offered nothing,

For faith had drained from out her veins.

No candle burned, no light remained,

The glass above was choked with soot,

No saint looked down, no mercy stirred,

No heaven answered human need.

She raised her head, yet did not weep,

For tears had long since run their course,

And all that lived within her chest,

Was something cold and tightly sealed.

Beyond the walls the graves lay close,

Each name worn thin by wind and rain,

Each stone a question left to rot,

Beneath the slow and patient earth.

And something moved below that ground,

Not bone, not flesh, yet not at peace,

A shifting weight, a restless hush,

That pressed against the skin of night.

The bell gave way, it cracked and fell,

A dull and final, heavy sound,

The tower bowed as though in shame,

Then stilled beneath the darkened sky.

No morning came to claim that place,

No dawn would cross its broken line,

For all within that parish knew,

Some nights are never meant to end.

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