When the reprisals of our souls,

too young to love, too small for pain,

repeat their mistaken ventures into

the uncolored light of mistaken journeys,

then it is that the walls whisper

their ghostlike songs of ever after –

sighs of the imperfect.

* * *

Here there are no endings,

only endings of old beginnings

that transform by a refusal

to submit to the indentured servitude

of the hollow and broken,

preferring instead the ancient newness

of Cistine handshakes.

* * *

In the cowls of earth, her ears of stone,

hear fathomless time, tonsured and teased

from her birthplace deep in

embowelled truth whose Name Is.

Encompass within yourself this

faceless sojourner only now

learning his name.

Photo courtesy of my friends and fellow monastic-creatives at Abbey of the Arts. Thanks Christine Valters-Paintner.