St. Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury

A dead leaf shivers over the abbey’s remains,
Caught by its yellowed brother, who also shakes.
Beneath them lie the older dead, a soft amalgam.

Hundreds of men studied, taught, and receded
Into this very dirt—no heirs but their pupils
To catch them in their last throes. No grave markers.

And my grandfather is breathing but hazy
In the hospital. Or maybe I missed the call.
Futile, I strain to hold his memory up,
  and I pray as he taught my dad: Our Father…

When both leaves fall, the sick and the dead, they are
Gone—earth to nameless earth—but
They will feed the tree.
The monks gave the Word of Life to my dead fathers;
And my grandfather, however gone he may be,
fed me that love that rot cannot touch.