poems I wrote when I spent a month at our lady of the angels monastery in crozet virginia may-june 2025. these aren't very heavily edited, if at all. I will make them less cringe eventually.

dog in the sanctuary

i have sinned, i have sinned,

dull roar behind the ear

i have gravely sinned.

bear on the mountain

i have sinned, i have sinned,

cracked skin on the fingers

i have gravely sinned.

~

light in the morning

blue-black wash

pooled garden rainwater

i am crying out to god

~

in the great silence

that small voice:

peace! be still!

an organ humming

two rooms away.

~

i looked around and said:

who can bear my sorrow for me?

and there was nobody.

too heavy to carry.

only god. only god.

~

now in the fading light of day:

i see my life, long shadowed.

i do not mourn, but weep.

~

swept courtyard excavation:

my first pass, embarrassing.

i watch elke dig out smooth

stone with just a push broom.

the first thought:

'would that i!'

and then i do, slowly.

~

and yes, I cried

when I tried to read

'laughter came from every brick'

to the novitiates.

I thought that grief was a doorway

you can't walk back through.

and you can't.

but I realize here,

where I laugh taking out the garbage

and cutting vegetables

and mopping floors

and because I can

and because it feels good to do it,

that joy came through with me.

'i know a song, would you like to hear it?'

and i will only add again.

i would like to hear it again.

~

after sean bonnette

when i have died,

take my body

unembalmed, rot working

its way out and bury me

in a copse of trees

behind dollar general.

deep in appalachia

no coffin, no name,

only a slab

of smooth stone with

golden letters

saying something mystical

of no particular creed,

something like

'here buried

is one of our age,

never to rise again.'

then leave me

for some child

playing in the closest thing

he has to a woods

to find and wonder over,

keep with him

as a promise that yes,

there is mystery

in the world, and he too

can make myth.

~

harboring pain like

a fugitive.

brooding over it,

cursed gold under

floorboards.

keeping pain

like a child

in a basement.

beating it, beating it,

old mule that can't

carry the cart

even a step further,

blood on its flanks,

eyes rolling in terror.

taking pain

like the eucharist,

dying, martyrdom

of nothing.

~

on the occasion of pentecost

i am speaking to you.

but beloved,

i have done nothing

but speak

since you were born.

you cannot listen,

and my voice will not falter.

i am speaking the world

into being around you,

reaching my arms out to

embrace, ever embrace,

even if you know me not.

even if you rage and weep and sigh,

i am chanting love into you

mouth to mouth,

like someone waking a corpse.

you will keep despairing,

i will keep singing.

~

lazy hawk circle

four or five

about their business,

keeping an eye on death.

~

the hiss-thunk

of the cheese press

becomes the hiss-thunk

of my body.

tension, release. tension, release.

whey and sweat.

~

wet earth, clay-damp

thick paste of bug and root.

o to sink into you, earth!

to be held by you

how only you know to

embrace a body.

final lover, eater of flesh.