Ora Et Lobora
TIMOTHY TARKELLY
CLF free world member, living in KS
A task is only as dull as its suitor,
and if you listen, you can hear your work
calling you, the joys of occupation
waiting to unveil their rewards: a chance to pray,
name your talents, a chance to sing.
Find rhythm in the feathers
scraping their wetted tips against
darkening sheets, open skins
soon to hold some ancient secret,
hallowed verse, hardened holy rule,
or in the marriage of wool and work,
the blood of pressed flowers fueling
the swimming needle, binding spun black
oceans, adding stones to heavy oaths,
to tonsured ethic,
or in the fields, the stench
of soil as its churned for new life,
rising to meet the spade
gripped in purposeful hands, pendulized
by the bulged and sweaty breaths of repetition,
and in the rise and fall of duty,
the long-hewn, calmative voice
of a thousand hopes burning at once,
smoldering inside righteous chests,
every candle’s daring lash at cobbled darkness.
Call back to it, say that you’re coming,
muscle and timbre, there is no other
that can wear your name,
sing these songs, mold the earth
quite like you.
- Ora Et Lobora - January 1, 2022
