I wrote this in 1986. It sums up how I felt shortly after leaving the Church. Apart from being rather more down in the mouth than I am these days, it still speaks for me. A MAZE The charm of a maze Depends on the fear Of getting lost. You turn and turn As the lengths of path Fill up with shadow And panic mounts. If you reach the centre There's nothing there Of any importance- Maybe a statue Or garden bench And the satisfaction Of crossword solving. You have got to "there" When "there" is only A shape of sodden Seedy grass, Out of sorts, Its meaning wholly Contained in the pattern You've traced to find it. This is an image For metaphysics Or any kind Of system building. Nothing is nothing However you dress it. Yeats at the end Of his life acknowledged There's only the heart. Our loves, our hates Generate patterns; The mind pursues them, Thinking it has An object and Ariadne's counsel. There's nothing there. Now I have spent A half a lifetime Fussing with questions I'll never answer. Time to call quits. I am ready at last To ask of life No more that simple Human friendships, Human loves, And like Candide To work the garden.