Two Monks Sing in Shower

 

2 Monks Join Me in the Shower

Bathing this morning

A cascade of thoughts of past life

raining monastic vows, visioning

2 friends who followed the call

Of enclosure

Closeness, with their Lord

in hallowed halls

Memories of Mark

unrequited

from Suffern, NY

Down river from Monastery Row

Where each of us sought refuge

In the hallowed halls,

chanting our prayers

with the friars

meditating on the paradise

gazing across the chasm

of the famous fjord

butterflies kissing the essence

of divinity

How I loved you Monk Mark

miss you still

even here, now as

water cascades down my

naked flesh with soothing heat

I am laughing remembering

your jovial presence

the searching soul

alight with compassion and humor

escaping the bondage

of the sacred closure

Ken, dear Ken

Martyr to AIDS

his love found no boundary

between sacred and profane

of flesh and spirit

His desire to love and be loved

Crying out, crying out

I knew him in devotion

daily at the holy feast

of the heavenly body

a sincerity that reeked

of lost and found

breaking into St. John the Evangelist

a robber in the night

to steal into the sacred

intangible arms of Jesus

desperate for his loving embrace

Gone are those days

Since I walked out the chancel door

for the last time

knowing my comfort

need be in the arms and hands

of this earth

this human flesh bound

the physical form

the body that surrounds

the heart

holds us

together

in trusting human arms

21 December 2016 ©j.m.frase-white

Image (Mixed Media, 4 X 7) 

& Framing May/June 2024