The Young Monk's Confession

 



In the touch of this bosom there worketh a spell,

                                      Samuel Taylor Colderidge

Hearing the black bird and willow moan,

I came about her in the wood. Her slim bones

draped in a gown  of mist. Her hair the falling sun.

She gathered leaves, bark, and stones, the makings of an altar.

 

I was all silence, breath trapped inside a tower

wanting to sing away this vision. Salve, Salve  the thought

was spun from save into salutation. The way she leaned,

laying her hand over the forest floor,  made me crave the earth,

 

what sprang from its roots. Her skin white as its mushrooms

almost glowing in the evening glade. And what grew from that,

keeps growing inside my soul like mold. Lust, love, a condition

that cannot be cleansed or denied. Only burned.