The Abbey Poem by David Lewis Paget

No longer knowing what or who I am
I turn,
This way and that for meaning,
Finding none,
But trapped within the body of a man
I know not.

The child I knew, and he remained supreme
Until
This beard turned grey,
The joints began to stiffen,
The dim reflections twisted to betray
One once thought lost to heaven.

Of all my time I have so little left,
And that exhausted, spent –
Squandered by him who thought
There was no cost in spending;
No giving up, no Lent.

From all to caul! Is this what we
Traverse,
Lost in our perversity and will,
Who spill our means, deny our source
Demean what knowledge shapes our course.

A shell remains, like some deserted Abbey;
And the gulls fly
Where monks once thought their spells,
And I….
I start at silences
Where long shadows, cowled, slink
Mutter at my carrells.

1 June 1985