The Old Monk, Speaking
written by: Tom Montag
The sideways thing,
I learned it
from coyote,
the old monk said.
***
These things
don’t just happen,
the old monk says.
Sometimes
you need a hammer.
***
I could go
through life believing
I could go
through life believing,
the old monk said.
***
It’s not the darkness
that’s the problem,
the old monk says.
It’s all the things
that hide beyond it.
***
If you say
the right thing,
you’ve said
everything.
You don’t need
to say more,
the old monk said.
Tom Montag's books of poetry include: Making Hay & Other Poems; Middle Ground; The Big Book of Ben Zen; In This Place: Selected Poems 1982-2013; This Wrecked World; The Miles No One Wants; Imagination's Place;Love Poems; and Seventy at Seventy. Two new collections, The River Will Tell You and Maybe Holy: Six Old Monk Poems are forthcoming. His poem 'Lecturing My Daughter in Her First Fall Rain' has been permanently incorporated into the design of the Milwaukee Convention Center. He blogs at The Middlewesterner. With David Graham he recently co-edited Local News: Poetry About Small Towns.
Latest posts by Tom Montag (see all)
- The Old Monk, Speaking - July 13, 2021
