#monastic
A Novitiate in the World
“…you will go forth from these walls,
but will live like a monk in the world.”
-Father Zossima to Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov
Every vocation is a novitiate
And every labor a monastic prayer:
Matins and Lauds are sung over coffee,
Then Terce for the plough, the lathe, and the wheel
Sext is gratitude for the midday meal
And None is the hour for downing tools
Soft Vespers is the song of happy homes
‘Til Compline sends all good folk to their beds -
Final vows are taken at death; for now,
Every vocation is a novitiate
Sep 16, 2016
Sep 16, 2016 at 4:54 PM UTC
She willed in tempered frosts
that hidden,
without consternation
the pew should call his name
Pale pink shadow,
of hushed cheek
Knowing her rose in origin,
and passages through,
a shameful pride began his edifice,
as her joys sculpted his rituals
Feb 8
Feb 8, 2026 at 8:48 PM UTC
My unfair love in question,
her lengthy thaw,
muting distance
Wisping towards the growing edge,
tumbling wire figurine,
and as an entire death
tentatively in posture
A sketching of fading pastels,
wash, without zeal
losing pallor, yet fearfully ripe,
and frail,
the weighing upon her,
my insistence
Feb 8
Feb 8, 2026 at 10:13 PM UTC