The warm sun sends shards of light into an ever darkening forest;

One desperate for warmth and ways to see a path,

And find the Way Out.

 

Into a whiteness which leads us home.

What makes you sacred,

Surely not the walls or their shape soaring upwards,

Or the craft in the seamless joins,

Made lovingly by stonemasons from the novel Sarum.

 

Is it the cold stone, or your warm face,

Which makes you look soft when you are hard,

Or the afterglow of incense, illuminated by the morning sun,

Streaming through the broken window.

 

No, these are memories, not inner peace.

But they do prompt the imagination,

Which is the door of my soul.

 

So there is my answer. The monastery Within.

Sitting silently, the darkness of the late afternoon envelopes the day,

Like a gentle cloud shielding the face,

From a crackling sun.

 

Less dramatic now, the wrinkles add their notes,

Of times well spent, and some less so,

Documented in indelible ink, not to be removed by Botox.

 

For we cannot conceal our learnings,

Even if we burn the books which taught us,

In the travel which is life.

 

We can only reflect. That is all.

Grace; ungraspable, traveling without impediment or passport,

Removes all obstacles in its path,

With a silent explosion, unhearable, yet somehow visible.

 

Grace; Turning the unholy to sacred,

Disrespectful of time, instantaneous in effect,

She turns all heads and minds towards goodness.

 

Grace; Vision restored,

The scales fall away regardless of age or permanence.

Giving sight where none was present.

 

Grace; Love communed in the everyday.

 

 

Empty once again, they sit how as some bygone reminder.

A reminder of remedies and solutions,

Perhaps true, or just a placebo for a young child,

Or aging relative.

 

Regardless, they were taken and satisfaction was received,

Or at least hope.

Grateful for the sun rising,

For the heat in the home,

The fresh tea on the stove,

A smile and morning kiss from my love.

 

Thank you for this day.

 

The face is now silent,

Yet calls us to break from the stone,

To speak and act for justice and love.