CONSIDERATIONS.

A NUN AND HER LIFE AND THOUGHTS.

Sister Clement licks the spoon clean
After the dessert had been eaten.
She senses the last of the custard
As she licks. Then she licks the knife
And fork in turn and places them all
In her large napkin and puts it in the
Space under the large refectory table.
She remembers her mother saying,
You only wash the cutlery once a week?
How simply unhygienic. Her mother
Never did quite get the used to her
Entering the monastic life. The letters
That were permitted a few times a year
Were always full of questions on hygiene
And sleep and if she had enough to eat.
No mention of how well she may be
Progressing in the life itself, how well
She may be coping with the early hours
And manual work and life of prayer.
She sits and watches the other nuns
Lick and clean and place their cutlery
In napkins and put away out of sight.
Hands hidden away in the lap or in
The deep habit pockets. She sits now
Reflecting on the sunlight through the
High glass windows, the rising specks
Of dust turning in the light like some
Small galaxy in a seemingly endless
Space unseen by other eyes but those
Of God. Pascal feared the endless space
Revealed by night it is said she’d read
Someplace. What was there to fear of
Dark and endlessness, she muses, as long
As God was waiting out there somewhere.