By William Lyons
THE MONASTERY
A cobbled path
dappled with phloxen hillock
and drifting shadow,
warm in a late-day sun
that leaks its way
through the green canopy above.
The world is quiet here,
other than the zip
of a hummingbird
across the lane
and the crash of waves
on the white beach far below.
Occasionally an insect or bee
darts along the edge of the path,
flitting around the wildflowers
that lean out over the stones.
The evening air is serene
over the sea,
pink and creamy clouds
a mile tall
lit from above
with yellow rays.
The water sparkles,
flecks of crushed gems
refracting the late hour’s
last throws of light.
Up ahead,
a break in the foliage
along the trail,
revealing in its recess
a small clearing
with three time-worn headstones,
green and porous
with the wind of ages.
A small stone angel,
rain-streaked,
stands atop one,
its eyes forever gazing
on the ocean.
The path winds upward,
hugs the cliff,
meanders along its lofty ridge.
Far on the blue expanse,
a faint trail of blue smoke
rises on the rim of the horizon.
The moon’s slender crescent
rises over the sea,
telling the day to retire.
Above it floats a single star,
brilliant against the approaching night.
The monastery is in view,
the path ending at its huge oak doors,
framed by age-old granite.
Its majestic towers jut skyward,
silhouetted against the evening.
An enormous old oak,
leaf-less and regal with centuries,
reaches its spindly arms
across the courtyard.
At its top,
a hundred feet up,
an owl studies the scene.
The wind sings
through the eroded window cracks,
their leaden glass
long broken and buried.
Now night has fallen,
and bird song has given way
to the sonnets of crickets and owls.
A million stars shimmer
in the eternity above,
a blue meteor
skittering across the arc
of the purple sky,
leaving its dust
to fall over faraway lands.
The stillness of the world
is surreal,
challenging to the mind
to separate the real
from the mystical.
The ghosts of abbey men
are present, unseen, but felt,
going about their midnight duties
among the trees and wind and shadow.
Nature’s chorus, crashing waves,
thrum of insects,
wind grooming tall grass,
cascades from all around
filling the world with its opera.
A dragonfly flits
from cattail to goldenrod,
its hum like scissors
cutting the night.
The rhythm of bats
pulsates like a thousand wings,
soars upward from the old church,
ravenous for fireflies
in the nearby wood,
whose flashes of light
like creation transform the forest
into a terrestrial nebula.
The moon has ascended now,
its effulgent radiance
spilling on the world
like liquid silver
from a celestial crucible.
The night dances
and laughs and rejoices
in its splendor,
nocturnal flowers
unfolding in its beacon,
sleeping fauna
awakening to its whisper.
A spotted fawn nibbles young shoots
of summer rye
in the abbey yard,
its eyes spellbound
in the lunate glow.
Faieries hide in the cones
of the coastal pines,
and chase one another
round the burbling brook,
which flows from its hillside spring,
cold and ancient.
Trout can be heard jumping,
and if seen in that fleeting second,
their iridescent bodies shine
like moon-soaked rainbows.
The gentle banks of the clear brook,
ashen in hue in the shaded moonlight,
smells of moss, rotted wood, root, and mud.
Tendrils of moonlight
play on the water,
bounce from slick rocks
like flashes of phosphor.
The peace of the night
is undisturbed here,
the old masonry
of the monastery
bathed in blue light,
still with the age of centuries.
In the heavens above,
night’s violets
sparkle like thistle abloom.
Cassiopeia weaving
on her glimmering loom,
sweet love songs
to a spring rose moon.
William Lyons is a native of Lynchburg, Virginia, who enjoys writing poetry and oil painting. He is a maintenance mechanic by trade and is pursuing a technical degree in mechatronics at CVCC.