ON SEEING NOSFERATU IN ST MARY'S CHURCH, HAY-ON-WYE, 7TH NOVEMBER 2014.
The honour given to the image is transferred to the prototype
St Basil the Great: Thirty chapters to Amphilochius on the Holy Spirit §18
What am I supposed to do with this
perfect image of vulnerability,
this tall, pathetic, sad-eyed
embodiment of evil, so overcome
with longing he is barely
present in the world, barely
aware of the plague
that follows him as he
journeys on, obsessively.
This is an image that,
unlike all those later avatars, even
Bela Lugosi, stays in the mind,
serene, quiet and finally,
kneeling by the shapeless
body of the heroine,
replete - utter contentment,
an image that offers itself
freely, insistently,
as an object of contemplation,
an object of thought.
But what am I
supposed to contemplate?
What am I
supposed to think?
The contemplation of Your icon, Lord,
is a door opening
on green pastures.
The icon of Nosferatu
is a door that is shut