#monastery
“Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.”
-Thoreau
Some six or so cheap watches set in a row
Ten-dollar Timex models with shabby straps
Cast-offs and hand-me-downs – and so one asks:
Why are there watches on a refectory table?
The abbey’s clocks are the moon and the sun
And the cycle of seasons each in turn
The changing leaves and liturgies in time
With the Great Dance of stars in their appointed spheres
But even so:
Those six or so cheap watches set in a row
Are
For outside appointments - and now we know!
Nov 23, 2018
Nov 23, 2018 at 12:11 PM UTC
"Silence is the only common language." - James Baldwin
This silence
started December 26th, 2020
Our days are filled with words
words around us and on us
words that embrace and pierce
words comprehensible and strangely made.
Among all this chaotic cacophony
sits each of us with our own words
spoken and unspoken
understood and not understood.
Now it is the frayed evening
and the one thing I can offer
is to listen to your words,
to bless them in my own way
like the abbot at compline
in the monastery dark and deep.
Then we both will part
into the silence of the night
the silence that surrounds us in the womb
and greets us when we cross over at our ending
this silence which is
our only common language.
Jan 10, 2021
Jan 10, 2021 at 3:56 PM UTC
A flowering shrub
at the monastery gate:
butterflies greet me.
Dec 20, 2024
Dec 20, 2024 at 3:09 AM UTC