Gnarled and blessed <br />be the hour of autumn <br />when spotted pears sink <br />into wet sod, and blessed be <br />the songs of virgins rising <br />into the hunchbacked trees. <br /> <br />November dawn. <br />Down damp stone stairs <br />we followed the priest, <br />past leaf-choked wells <br />and jagged trees, <br />past the red rage of dogwood <br />ringing a black lake. <br /> <br />Dies Irae, he intoned, <br />Dies Illae, day of wrath. <br />We followed his swinging <br />censer, trail of smoke: <br />schoolgirls in gray, novices <br />in white veils, nuns in ragged black <br />tapping tortoise canes. <br /> <br />What joy to bear the fear, <br />to smell orbs of incense <br />perfuming the rot of leaves, <br />to cross the stubbled field <br />as crows rushed and whirled, <br /> <br />pecking at windfall seeds. <br />We arrived, rainsoaked, awed <br />to watch young nun-brides <br />kneel, and spread their thin bodies <br />across green doors of graves.<br /><br />Geraldine Connolly<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/procession-of-all-souls/
