The man on a ladder is no friend of God
though he is high on a church’ s side.
He scrapes and paints, and the bare boards are turning white.
He was, he said, bored, and the church,
God bless the Anglicans, was looking sad.
It was moved here for preservation.
Its little town shrank and died, and the Rotarians stepped in.
God bless the Rotarians.
Up it came, its arched door and pretty windows.
They sat it here, where the rusty rail line curves west.
There is no uplifting choir, just wispy nor-west cloud,
a painter’s beefy arm poking enamel under stout boards.
Inside, you can see his legs, climbing to the cross
This is a great piece, John, the whole setting of it, one of your great man-and-landscape pieces, the no-nonsense description to open (‘The man on a ladder is no friend of God..) to his ‘ascent’ to the cross, as Dean mentions.
Thanks for your kind thoughts, guys, and thanks for reading.
Love that last image, John!