Stand silent, and you’ll sense the ghosts
Of Fountains Abbey
White Monks in raw wool habits
Wafting through your soul
Formed-up, Benedictine and Cistercian
Heads low in solemn procession
One-by-one and breeze-by-breeze
Hushed forever now
But loud as children running free
Through grassy fields
Where the entrance used to be
You can feel them still, within
Her hallowed walls
In chaffinch nests that mark
Majestic sandstone halls
Guides informs us these are ruins,
But they can’t describe
The abundant life that’s found inside
The broken mortar and crumbled
Abutments that fused the
Banquet hall and cells
In every fracture, every crack
A plant or insect dwells
Stroll with them,
The ghostly monks of Fountains Abbey
Through the frigid corridors,
They still perform their daily chores
Baking bread and weaving wool
Tending sheep across the meadow
To the altar where they pray
For their brothers who lie
Today, below the stony, ancient paths
Open to the Yorkshire sky
*From the book: Vapours of Promise, ©2004 - ISBN 1-59526-352-7
Kelly Vinal
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-ghosts-of-fountains-abbey/