"The Last Of The Wine" Written 1972

(Written in 1972 while in an abbey on retreat.  I had "found" a bottle of sacraficial wine, and being young and bored, took to my little cell and reflected thus:)

000~~~~~000~~~~~000~~~~~000~~~~~000~~~

I lie here dying in a hundred small ways

from voices crying out my name down endless hallways;

and the clock keeps ticking, eating up the time,

and I'm down to the last of the wine.

My eyes are amazed at the movement my hand makes

while reaching out to the disappearing handshakes,

and the room keeps spinning, slowly in my mind,

and I'm down to the last of the wine.

I sleep on my back, all through the night

and dream of dying, lost in the sunlight

floating on cloudy mists, feather-fine,

I'm still drunk on the last of the wine.

As familiar shadows of the morning start to harden,

I rise up singing to the angel in the garden.

Some sweet and silent angel of another place and time

who sees that I've had enough wine.

csr