Chorin Abbey Brandenburg, Germany
You’re less at ease the further north we ride. Through drowsy towns, past lakes too small and old To name, I watch you darken. We rest beside A meadow wild with sunlight. “It’s still the Cold War here,” you nod. “Or worse.” A path of chunks Of lime – an ochre glow through beechwood leaf – Then a cloister’s Neo-Gothic brickwork. The monks Are four centuries ousted; I’ve no belief In loitering souls of the dead. And you’ve no trust In the hearts of the living. Scored clerestory, panes Removed. Chancel black and altar-less. Just A quiet, like patience – forgiveness even – remains.
Covid Saints I: St. Christopher
Dafoe began by counting burials – nine In St. Bride’s, in St. James’s, twelve – but soon the toll Grew to toppling, bodies carted spine To cheek, cheek to kneecap, and tumbled with pole And pipe-smoke into a moonlit pit. Ending As way in. And through. So tongueless numbers, grim Hindsight. Amidst, though? Underway, bending Into unshaped oncoming? Pelicans’ trim Shoreline regatta. Fly-strewn, a window sash Stuck, undusted. A novel’s jacket, its rows Of praise, its grimacing photo, curling. Ash Saplings and dock in grass. And a medal that shows A tale of an unbridged flood that slapped and swelled, Of a giant, who gasped and sweated to keep afloat Weight become otherworldly, weight upheld By one childlike belief that gripped his throat.
James Scannell McCormick lives and teaches college English in Rochester, Minnesota. His third collection of poems, First of Pisces, has just been published by Kelsay Press.
Grand Little Things 