Ex LibrisII

I wandered many years alone and wordless
In the midnight shadows of cloister walks
Breathing in the coolness of air infused with spent incense
And feeling the echoes of plainchant still reverberating in my soul
In the silent darkness I would steal away into the library
That housed in over a hundred thousand books
The arcane knowledge of clever scholars and pithy priests
Scorned novelists and languishing poets
Because my mind burned for sacred knowledge
And my heart yearned for a numinous breath of life
Which I secretly possessed but did not yet know
At the break of dawn
When the sun rose in glints of majestic hues
Nature would open her book of secrets
And she turned its pages for me unceasingly
As the cycle of the seasons progressed
Holding nothing back
She would lead me time and time again
Along the curve of the cloister wall
That led to the hedge hidden within a tangled copse
That had been cultivated into a shape
Which reminded me curiously of a womb
- Like an ancient Celtic burial ground -
Until one day I crept inside and wept
I had wanted to be the Bride
I had come to seek holy ground
But instead I found scorched earth
Broken mirrors of human virtue and submission
Which reflected no light
So I found the key to the hidden gate
And carried the cloister of my heart
Into the expanse of the world
I constructed a hermitage made of paper
And arrayed myself in Nature's gifts

Original poem by Anne Wallace

Music used by permission of the artists of the album Chartres: Catherine Braslavsky and Joseph Rowe
http://www.naturalchant.com/disco.htm#chartresplace
Cello piece "Night in the Cathedral" by Thierry Renard. With gratitude.

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