Jose Padua: Every Man for Himself

The brother nods back silently to me
as he places my jar of honey with ginger
in a paper bag at the monastery store
in Berryville. Why would such a man
ever want to speak to me, also a man,
but of such noisy, grunting spirituality,
would any one in his right mind
ever call it spirituality? Not me.
Meditation for me can be a single
key struck on a piano in a darkened
hallway, but just as often is a scream
toward the menacing, expanding drift
of the bending trees above me. It’s
the screaming they call the distance
for those too remote to see me. It’s the
case for being we’ve each selected,
his in silence and mine in cacophony.
It’s the way my lack of mastery of
everything in my head dissolves itself
into a thousand beautiful fragments of grace.

Photograph by Jose Padua