New Norcia
Australia’s only monastic town
Religion is retreating like the tide
and in its wake
empty suburban churches are being renovated
into chic apartments for the well-to-do.
While outside of the city,
on the edge of the wheatbelt
the buildings of an old Benedictine monastery
are crumbling to dust.
There are too few monks left to make bread or ale.
The bakery and the hotel have long closed down.
And the clocktower at the top of the church is missing its face.
As though time no longer mattered.
The desert is poised to take back the whole town.
Too many sunsets have seeped in through the windows.
Every room is suffused
with the soft orange glow of end times.
The peacefulness of a bygone era
is settling over the gardens
of weeping silver princess
and overgrown lantana.
While inside the church,
high above empty pews,
the saints look down from faded murals
with their end of an epoch sadness,
and a solitary organ player
pipes hymns out into the space between stars,
where the prayers of the faithful dissipate
out into deafening silence.
Peter Horgan lives in regional Western Australia. His writing has previously appeared in Poets Corner, as well as “Sūdō Journal” and with “Night Parrot Press”.
Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.