At the Ruined Monastery

 

by Brett Rutherford

     After a painting by Kaspar David Friedrich

Hell’s eye, the whole horizon,
stares back at me,
an ovoid glow,
a foggy cataract.

Demons regard me
through gnarled elms
November has stripped
into a warlike barricade
fit only for crows and hawks.

Of that proud monkish pile
one arch alone remains.
Glass shards adorn the ground
(work of the King’s men
to abolish all Popish pride)
leaving intact a skeletal
lead lattice-work,
a perfect tracery
of Goth geometry.

Do the dead beyond
train telescopes
upon the hooded pilgrims
who come in adoration
of the Sublime in ruins?

They search in vain
for a crucifix aloft
or even a trinket
of saintly yore.

Here in this misty clime
that only tourists visit now,
no word of Latin sounds.

One muffled bell I hear,
a groan, a sigh — but not
from this side. Only the dead
would have the monks return,
and only those already dead
require a bead or candle.

Most who come now,
in cowled mockery
of the sainted past
are tourists. The arch,
the trees, the eye of Hell
are background for self-
portraiture.

The dead watch.
The living mill about,
take selfies.
“A shame the English
let things go this way,”
one says. Another, to me:
“This ought to be a poem,
you know, about us
being here.”

Hell shrugs. Sky’s eye
bursts out in sunny rays.
The spell is broken.