| SANTA KATARINA |
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Foot of Mount Sinai well might seem spot on prime locale to quit world & secular woes — two days' dust & bone-jar four-wheeling trek up from Red Sea thru desert most notorious for entire tribes to wander long-term lost So, at first, it must circa 600 A.D. have appealed to Coptics — Christians out of Egypt who here put prototype for all monasticism: first hermitage monks built in order to be monks abandon cares of this life isolate in quietude better far to contemplate almighty god & pray for mansions in hereafter — adjacent foot of very mountain where Jehovah His Law upon stone tablets gave to Moses, twice — within monastic walls beside mosaics of courtyard shaded corner to nurture shoots off burning bush Imagine, as you're able fourteen centuries later: you to be an orthodox monk whose daily duty is to tend with holy water branches, yet-living, that burned spoke with God's voice, angry you to lean out parapets last half-dozen years & see air-conditioned busloads disgorge year-round roll in off recent easy highway from Beersheba — package-tour hats escorts with Uzi's — Santa Katarina become featured half-day tour's attraction As, dear Christly brother you puzzle over brisk trade in hashish on Mount Sinai's lower slopes — summit part of package for ruddy-cheeked & back-pack set — your charnel house now with ticketed admission — tours in pretend horror gape at skulls of fellow monks since the beginning — chapel, off-hours, open for polyester plumpish hordes to fondle ikons I suspect despair be your sin of choice — an urge to fling stone tablets |
| Terrance Cox writes poems and non-fiction while also teaching Canadian studies, film, literature and popular music at Brock University, St Catharines, Ontario, Canada. In what seems another lifetime, he taught as well in Malawi, Africa and at BirZeit in the occupied West Bank. He has published more than 200 poems in Canadian and UK journals and anthologies. His published collections include a "spoken word with music" CD, Local Scores (Cyclops Press, 2000) and Radio & Other Miracles (Signature Editions, 2001). |
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Poem © Terrance Cox, 2000 Web design by Gerald England This page last updated: 25th October 2002. |