vasilescu’s father’s friend has left the seaside to
go to a monastery in the north. there in the mountains
he wants to empty his mind of thought until it comes to entertain
a notion of that provisional shadow cast by conscience, with its bitter residue
of worldly time, like fruit kernels that pile up in a heap
and make him count them, so that, here among the hills, he no longer can keep
straight whether this evening is for real, or whether that tree
elongated in shadow across the yard, with leaves that weep,
isn’t the answer to the questions he surely
has always asked himself about time, about that gesture
heavy with transience which is itself fear of nonentity.
vasilescu’s father’s friend becomes a void of light,
evening falls by the church tower and, very contrite,
the friend feels it envelop him utterly, with a genuine piety.

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