Another Poem for the Christmas Season: Monks of St. John File in for Prayer

The Monks of St. John's File in for Prayer
Kilian McDonnell

In we shuffle, hooded amplitudes,
scapulared brooms, a stray earring, skin-heads
and flowing locks, blind in one eye,
hooked-nosed, handsome as a prince
(and he knows it), a five-thumbed organist,
an acolyte who sings in quarter tones,
one slightly swollen keeper of the bees,
the carpenter minus a finger here or there,
our pre-senile writing deathless verse,
a stranded sailor, a Cassian scholar,
the artist suffering the visually
illiterate and indignities unnamed,
two determined liturgists. In a word,
eager purity and weary virtue.
Last of all, the Lord Abbot, early old
(shepherding the saints is like herding cats).
These chariots and steeds of Isreal
make a black progress into church.
A rumble of monks bows low and offers praise
to the High God of Gods who is faithful forever.

[Found in Keillor, Garrison. Good Poems for Hard Times. Penguin. 2005. 6.]