The Retreat


by Pavel Chichikov

This monastery built for hundreds

Holds no more than twenty –

Departed, others eat their feasts of paper

Banqueting on grave-mold dishes

Here the Blessed Virgin was before

But has no office to perform,

Watchful in the corner of two hallways,

Faces both directions on the upper floor

What a busy place this once was

But all the guileless cells are empty

Except the chambers of the novices

And twelve monks more make twenty

On retreat one time with her

I had no gift for meditation –

Prayer for me is ancient writing –

Hieroglyphic metaphor

Inside the hollow square

Spacious in abandonment,

Rows of rooms like robbed coffins,

The cloister in the open air

My soul prefers unseen retreats

The living refuge of the body,

Makes small niches for itself

Around the courtyard of a single heart

Listen, Lady, I am frightened

Because this house is huge and empty –

No, she says, it will be filled

Quite soon with more than ten times twenty

Visit Pavel's website at Grey Owl Press.

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