I have taken shelter in the plainsong
Happy with the cause and effect
Of suggestion followed by response
As if that isn’t just what I do
By allowing myself to become vulnerable
In a place where I have no provenance
I look at the sacred image
Of Jesus himself
Above the devil below
As if in my first visit to the opera
With Mephistopheles
Beneath the stage in central London
That neither of those items
Became any kind of shelter
Says a good deal
About the simplicity
And absolute naivety
Of my upbringing
Of course, by myself
I tried to change that
I went on many explorations
I moved shelters many times
Once or twice I thought I had found
The one space which truly mattered
Yet
Just as my casting off
The imagery and the hierarchy
Of organised religion
Sort of did it for me
The solution itself still wandered
It took me to the song
And the ritual
It took me to the incense
And the occasion
It took me beyond myself
To that way distant shelter
