Visiting the Monastery

I stop by Father Paschal’s grave to pay my respects.

One stone cross in a row of stone crosses,

still clean and white.  Unweathered.

 

All the books in the bookstore,

all the many spines.  All my resentments.

 

The monks stand in their wooden stalls,

row by row,

someone else in Paschal’s now, and they chant

the psalms they chanted before.

 

How their voices echo in that empty space,

how they rise and fall,

 

how Paschal wept when he gave me

his old copy of the Paradiso,

the tears ran down his face, it was so beautiful.

 

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