The nun

On different photos, layers of dust, just one
is clear although the sepia fading.
This is the portrait she always stroked,
her thoughts butterflies in the garden.
This room is not a room, it is
where they have loved each other deeply.

Sleepy her eyes try to focus on the face,
only a vague contour is showing. He
could have been one of her ancestors too, but
she remembers the frame under her skin.
It is him, almost gone beneath the paper.

Children’s voices sing in the garden,
taking her back to the monastery and her death.
The house has been empty for sixty years,
the dust has thickened. No one comes here anymore.

 

( I shall not try to explain this one, it is written in an attempt to understand someone I never met. If that is vague, well that is poetry for you…)