The Friars Of St. Joseph
Used to walk around in leather
earthen crewel powdering flagstones
diseased traffic
exchanging whispers
They had a rectory garden
shaped like the olde cross
with helices emanating
from its prismatic centre
Unpainted benches
intimate a frangible diadem
-lolled neath spires of auburn and jade
The church bell’s terse, metered prose
beyond rumpled wainscoting
deciduous flora
mouthed in a turbulence of chimes
held the ear as if by fetters
Darning Time round their lone orbit
hemming the quilted grass
advancing in pairs
robed men trace
gullies of iron
From blithe hollows
whom eulogize the Earth
with tremulous ablutions
unspoken murals
invoke ebullient hermitage
They pass among sophic boughs
mantic spines of luminosity
They graze demurely
chiding the lascivious heat
guided by song.