Portable Convent

(On Leaving New Camaldoli)

Sign with the word silence

Let me take the silence

of this cell with me

when I go,

not as armor

but a spring inside me

fed by ever melting snow.

May it ripple and reverberate,

contained in the perfect

acoustics of my heart.

I want to hear it in the world,

and if people sense a certain something

when I do, let them wonder what it is.

I will let it spill out –

I can be profligate –

it is an everlasting flow. 

Sunset from the road to New Camaldoli Hermitage

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Mary Camille Thomas

Mary Camille Thomas is a native of Santa Cruz who is grateful to make her home on the California coast once more after living internationally and on the road. She studied comparative literature at UC Davis and received a master’s degree in library science from UCLA, which gave her a way to earn a living while making a life among books. Her poetry and essays have appeared in the Monk in the World Guest Post Series, Moving Force Journal, Presence, Porter Gulch Review, Second Wind, Sisters Singing, and The New Story, and she has completed a novel called What Lies Buried about a man reckoning with his family’s Nazi past.

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