This is an early poem, first drafted when I was a novice, revised a couple of years later. The little sketch was done during one of my many solitary strolls through the monastery grounds. There was a short path along one of the "arms" of the enclosure wall that I particularly loved and called "The Avenue." I wanted to memorialize it in this poem and sketch.
"The Avenue" is dapple-most
on ochre afternoons.
Along this path the breezes murmur
their most wistful tunes,
the only sound
save the dry-leafed ground
beneath my feet. I watch the light
play shyly on the wall,
the longed-for boundary that nestles
those who heed the call
in arms of stone
to be God's own.
I savor this way of wood and wall
that lies so straight, serene,
between the here, the now, the chosen,
and what once had been.
Still—I know that yesterday
is but a dappled wall away.
Poem and sketch © Leticia Austria 2009
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