First Moments Taken

As you wake
Are you present
With the presence you gave

As you bathe
Are you awash
With those whom you washed

As you eat
Are you fed
By those who you fed

As you dressed
Are you undressed
By those who undressed for you

As you walk
Do you walk
By those who walked to be beside you

As you talk
Are your words heard
By those whose words were spoken for you

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Displacement

On my own
Only four monks so far
Surely more will arrive
Seven monks now
But still just me in the pews

What is contemplation for
What is meditation for
Are they a test of one’s doubts
Or is it to purge one’s doubts
Life without end

Life without end
One more parishioner joins me
Maybe he is Italian
Or Eastern European
He was late yesterday also

Should I buy him a watch
What are his troubles
What are my troubles
World without end
World without end

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Names, Places

The photograph
Of the crucifixion
Is by David Elford

We used to live
At Elford Park; actually
It is from there that I departed

That picture
Above the fireplace
It is dated 2014

The one to the side
Also by David Elford
Is dated 2009

Though that one is
Mostly of blue sky
With hazy white clouds

It is a little less certain
A little less
Finite

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07:45 Lauds

Nine monks in their place
Eight in the congregation
Myself included

Candles
Artificial light
True light
As the day begins
With call and response

Accompanied
By the new organ
New to me that is
Installed and commissioned
Since my last visit

I cannot find its sound
Although oh so so easily
I can feel it, I can hear it
Its reverberations settle within me
They set me free, they gift me life

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Say It No More

I might not even be here, after all there is
Absolutely no incoming communication
I have been, as it were ex-communicated
If that rings true

What is that song about spiders
There is a song isn’t there
Also a book about disquiet
Yes I am certain to have read it

If there is a plan then this is the plan
Bare oneself
To the wave after wave of nothingness
Riot after riot of unanswerable questions

With or without the headphones
Also with or without
Any prior contemplative knowledge
It is after all why I came here

To feel the ache of lost love
To feel the pain of lost love
To wallow
In the decrepitness of such loss

In the very middle
Of the darkest of the darkness of night

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