Sundown at the Abbey

After a day in the fields
plowing and sowing, 
the old monks see 
sundown is near so 
they put away tools, 
clean up for supper. 

It's soup and bread 
torn from a loaf, 
chunks of good cheese, 
a rainbow of bright 
fruit from the orchard, 
coffee as black as tar.

There are 20 monks left,
slow and ailing, a drop
from a hundred or so 
a few decades ago.
The harvest is small,
their lives still simple. 

They work in the fields
and pray in the chapel.
But birds in the air 
sometimes hear prayer 
rise from the fields
and soar past them.


Donal Mahoney

donalmahoney@charter.net
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, USA and has had poems published Ancient Heart Magazine and other publications in the United States, Europe, Asia and Africa.