Poem of the Month

Pater Nosterer and Pilgrim by Tina Baker

*

You strung my faith on a strip of linen

whose ends would one day fray.

Who knew the beads would be lost

and if they would ever be found?

*

You worked beside the abbey,

on a sea of parings, boxwood and yew,

your bow lathe sawing, crafting beads;

I still see your hands working.

*

You passed me the rosary for my journey,

the best I could afford,

smiled when I told you what comfort it held.

You’ll not get such warmth from jet or gold.

*

I did not know the beads would be lost.

Did you?

*

Who knew faith could be dissolved

along with hope and charity?

Who would have guessed

just how quickly all went against?

*

I thought of you in those bruised seasons

of destruction and suppression,

the division and the persecutions,

the forbidding of your humble trade.

*

Did roses rot in abbey gardens

as hungry rats watched from nearby glades?

Did you drag your missing mind

along a wasted aisle

and feel its crouching absence

in that ravaged hallowed ground?

*

They say you searched for what little was left

within the mulch of violence,

they say you spent your last days alone

weeping in the ruins.

*

I wish I could have told you

hold on to your faith.

The made can not be unmade,

the past can never leave.