THE ANGELUS CALLS.

MONKS IN AN ABBEY IN 1971.

The old monk
with Parkinson’s disease,
bug eyed

through thick lenses
spectacles,
his fingers

shaking the host,
is unable to find
the tongue

in sick monk’s
static mouth.
I weeded

the cloister Garth
flower bed,
back aching,

God
at my young
bent shoulder.

The youngest monk,
squat and black robed,
holds the ewer,

while the abbot
holds between
knobbly fingers,

the aspergillum,
to bless the monks
in the choir stalls,

after Compline,
before
the Angelus calls.