John Forbis is an Anglican Benedictine monk of the Order of the Holy Cross living and working at Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, New York. His poems have been published in South Africa, United States and the United Kingdom.
John Forbis is an Anglican Benedictine monk of the Order of the Holy Cross living and working at Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, New York. His poems have been published in South Africa, United States and the United Kingdom.
Magic is what happens when the sun rises.
This sunrise, I see mounting across the river,
hovers over a mansion that is only 200 years old.
A mansion where a family lived is now
vacant for thousands of other families to
inhabit vicariously. Flat stones at a bank
of the Hudson cool my bottom.
Flecks of a grey sky seem ready to peel
from clouds, thick as boulders; a hulling
light stretches candl...
Do you believe
in God? Not the first
time I was asked that question
Not the second either;
“Do you believe in God?” Who wants
to know? (it never seems to be me)
I’m in the church.
I woke up early, brushed my teeth, took
a shower, threw the clothes I slept in in-
to a laundry hamper, and I am here
barely able to hold a breviary
in my velcro-braced hand
(a fall I took o...