The Red and the Black              Gemona, Italy

The black robed monk
has won:
the demands of the confessional
repeat;
sin after sin,
there is
no alternative -
we are sinners all.
Forgive us, Father.
You are your mother -
forgiveness...forgive.
Confess,
now you can,
confession is for the soul.
Two nuns, diminutive,
enter the church-yard,
church steeples towering
over the black
of habit...
when you sleep like a sister,
quiet, unmoved,
then you may confess.
Now, you can.
Habit, habitat,
two towers, gothic
built and re-built,
reconstructed
after the quake
tower over the churchyard:
the church shall reclaim
the wanderers, earthbound
the modern soul,
lost soul,
de-constructed.
Miniscule black,
habit becomes habit,
promises retrieved:
where was the betrayal?
In which premise
to which promises
are we bound:
the first
or the unspoken?
Two figures
in black, like figurines,
nun or monk
monk or nun
miniscule beneath the towers,
dwarfted,
tiny within the church -
yard, genuflect.
Rose window sunlight refracted,
genuflect,
reflect...
beneath the towers
bell towers
after the quake
stone by numbered stone
it shall be
rebuilt -
humility and pride -

the essence of the earlier,
of the innocence,
of the entirety,
of the ether
call and recall,
the whole...
from the cell
two black dressed
figures,
the nuns approach
the towers over the church,
the stone mountains
towering over...
Hope is in the reconstruction,
promise in the call
clarion call.
To whom shall they pray:
Mother of mothers
or mountain of stone?
the nuns balance
in their genuflection.
The Monk has won.
But...
within the cell
betrayal:
innocence
can not be
reborn.