Today my shelter is the future
For tomorrow I go to Buckfast Abbey
To sleep monastic side
In the monk’s guest-bedrooms
All there will be silence
Silence as a shelter
Silence as a virtue
Silence as a way of carrying on
Yet nature will not gift me silence
Indeed quite the opposite
As I walk beside the gushing river
Listening to the undoubted mass of birdsong
My shelter will also be in the routine
The daily prescriptions of
Matins, Lauds, Conventual Mass
Before evenings of Vespers and Compline
For certain I will have the shelter of books
Books for reading, books for writing
I will often find my own word shelter
In the stained-glass Chapel also in the Abbey
And, because this is a trip to Devon
I will see my youngest son
There will be a smile
Along with amusing conversation
So not all of this shelter will be silence
Although in Dartington’s meditation garden
I hope to find peace, I hope to find calm
I hope to enjoy my own contemplations
My future shelter is also in my automobile
Six hours driving, in each direction
With lots of good music on the stereo
And maybe a shopping retreat along the way
