Epistle to Old Friends

Epistle to Old Friends
My Dearest old friends
This letter explains the whys
Of my late decision
Trust me, I am sad
To validate the bad news

Aged, I had to leave
With my senses still intact
Invaded by a Dodo bird
My mind and heart fled
To escape her confinement

From my recent cell
I pen poignant, painful words
A vow of strictest silence
Imposed by the Cross
My penance as a sinner

In Merlot vineyards
Tender young grapevines pruned
By my calloused hands flourish
Yield succulent fruit
Work cleanses my darkest sins

Now celibate, hot winds
Of passion ignore my life
Their fickleness justified
My body temple cool
The mind free to meditate

Over the horizon
Light filters through a soft glass,
A luminous clear window
A backward vision
Clarifies my path today

From the river’s edge
I smell putrid carcasses
Salmon fertilize water
Beginning, ending
A cycle of renewal

The cloistered tower
Juts upward from verdant hills
Shields from cawing crows
The isolated prayers
Silent, mystical phrases

A prickly hair shirt
Adorns my wrinkled scruples
A clue of my fallen path
The shouldered burden
A Side-road to salvation

Catholic my guilt
Father’s sins re-visited
With every novel sunrise
Subsides with the moon
Illuminates sleepless sleep

My children scattered
Lost to commerce and warfare
I but a singular step
In a line of descent
Write this final epistle

I seek to understand
A voice echoes in my ear
Like a ship’s bell in the fog
Eerie and haunting
It whispers my father’s nane

KBris 2006