The Hairy Monk/The Hairy Monk doesn't budge

The Hairy Monk

Outside this window a hairy monk in his brown robes
strides through the vegetable patch, swishing,
as monks tend to do; a blue over-frock,
a blue bottle of something Holy in his hand,
enters the chicken coop, blessing, sprinkling,
saying monk things to the quiet flock;

reappears to circle the greens
shaking the bottle like vinaigrette,
hopscotches the terracotta path
followed by Mr and Mrs Jeans,
who postponed this afternoon's siesta
to pray over their silver Ford Fiesta.

He shakes his Holy thing around
door frames, along the driveway,
lingers by the entrance to their abode,
and they disappear inside for cups of herbal tea.

Will the hens sing songs tomorrow?
One can only wait and see.

*

Three months under the kosh 

of hierarchy’s accident, 

Lockdown, 

the snakes in the grass and adders climbing 

ladders, the Hairy Monk no match

for the noise of Corp and Coop, looped

his swing rope, frankincense licence lit

around doorway frames, not blind

to the ticking Ford Fiesta revving

dust songs on the driveway – screams

of oyster and lobster exploding

thermitic pulchritudinous muck

soft morphing the petrichor of herds

moving speckled beach towels,

and the monk doesn’t budge.

The colours of a pearl siesta, rainbows

of salt in his eye, a soft pollen mote

journeying to the heart.

*

(There was poison on the move

to the matter – the Minister in Bridgewater

would be fine, walking a Dover crow’s

ear across the cliffs, side stepping

crab and drumbeat dreams

of blackbird’s worm – a Sensitive

Cat with scars down it’s back

no one looked at, again in the rain)

*

I went to our grove and found it tangled.

It’s not our watercress bed, but knot-weed

and orchids blooming orphrys’ biography,

hanging lone chain-mail clanging a weave

through the green. Nobody would want to come

here anymore.The Village had shrunk-in on itself,

shrunk again and shrunken heads spiked and fallen

footballs of pig and goat gut for children long gone.

On Dylan’s bench, carved inscription etched.

I wanted to see them too as watery hieroglyphs

drawn by Monet’s impressions and Turner’s

smudges, take the light, take a stone

and leave it there. 

But it was cold, the iron windmill

on the fireplace tipped to freewheel 

a starfish from the top of Black Boy hill

and unroll the stolen canvas buried under a tree.

Elena presented all the lost Marys of Romania.

Alina the songs of innocence, Mark marched 

and found something missing in the crowd.

By the bench, this is how we are not alone, and how a mote

becomes a view.