December 1, 2020

the hermitage

Have you, too, been surprised lately by your own monkhood, how you’ve tucked 
into the task of, say, slicing snack carrots, with your head bowed, feeling the devotion 
of the moment? Have you begun brushing your hair as if cloistered in a clock tower, 
timing your strokes metronomically? Are you finding yourself staring into the face of a
new moon offering a scatter of prayers? I imagine our houses domed under, the light 
of a single bulb casting a soft circle around our evening ministrations, the minutest 
pleasures we have learned to extract from a deck of cards, a cookbook, a jigsaw puzzle.
Look at us, huddled around low coffee tables on bent knees. Look at us, faithfully 
stirring the Sunday sauce, gentling in a tiny bouquet of basil. The way we have been
scrubbing our hands, as if our life depends on it.