The old monk
with Parkinson’s disease,
bug eyed
through thick lenses
spectacles,
his fingers
shaking the host,
is unable to find
the tongue
in sick monk’s
static mouth.
I weeded
the cloister Garth
flower bed,
back aching,
God
at my young
bent shoulder.
The youngest monk,
squat and black robed,
holds the ewer,
while the abbot
holds between
knobbly fingers,
the aspergillum,
to bless the monks
in the choir stalls,
after Compline,
before
the Angelus calls.