on the winding road to Tintern Abbey
where the scent of mint fills the air,
mist on the hills making the Abbey
an even more mysterious vista.
The empty arches show different films:
sometimes with blue sky, sometimes stars
but today I view a blackening ether.
Suddenly white doves settle on the ruins
as if the spirits of the "White Monks,"
a Cisterian order since 1131
when this magnificent abbey was built.
They came to find God and live
a simple life far from maddening crowds
and I seem to hear a ghost choir in the damp air.