Envy of the Empty Air
A POEM
Of what do they dream
— the white-robed monks?
while we
with half-shaped forms
from night’s pale palette
sleep
and sigh:
how sweeter than a monk’s dream
could sweet be?
and draw the covers tight
against the cold.
Dreams of our own
by day, by night,
work dark
their untold words
in our unwilling
death.
We sleep a sleep that does not feed
within a night that does not hide;
and in the dark
the mirrored heart reflects upon itself.
Yet what do they dream?
— the cloistered monks
who have
no day like ours
to populate their
night.
(…Dream praise and halleluiahs,
Dream six-winged seraphed love,
Dream chrisom child’s anthem
sung slow and clear and soft,
Dream saints’ all-haloed glory,
Dream Resurrection’s gift,
Dream dreams of life eternal
as long as they shall live?)
We sigh:
No sweeter than a monk’s dream
can sweet be
and draw the covers tight
against the cold.
But what if we’re wrong
and sleep-filled monks
dream of
the long dark space
between themselves and
God?
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“Browning soon worked out of unbelief to an undogmatic, respectable form of theism.” — confidently…