Order in the desert
 
Sister Parsimonia washes her hair
in a mouthful of sand.
 
Her eyes flicker. The earth
shifts with a hiss.
 
She can never relax for the snakes.
She has learned what not to eat
 
and how to survive on less,
but not how to live with the dry
 
horror of serpents. St Patrick,
she breathes, and grips the stick
 
the others call the priest.
 

Sister Parsimonia’s first lesson
 
Water is a mineral, deep
inside the scabby earth.
 
Diggers prospect for it
in one-man mines,
 
using percussion to try
to beat it out. Fool’s water
 
is a problem. Salinity
can drive a man insane.
 

Sister Brigid visits the diggings
 
Sister Brigid walks gingerly
through the fields. The dust settles
 
in her seams. They die young
in the desert, men falling into their own
 
wells in the dark, or caving in
to the drink. Sister Brigid doesn’t judge.
 
When she goes visiting, she takes
a long stick and a mirror.
 
She keeps each grave tidy.
 

Co-habitation
 
Each has their own annoying habit. Sister Parsimonia
likes to tidy things away before the meal is finished.
Sister Brigid whistles – fuzzy hymns and Broadway hits
in a one-two rhythm. Sister Mary likes comforting
the sore in spirit, of whom there are happily
always sufficient around her. Even Father Simeon,
who would prefer to be cheerful to a fault, has
a tendency to flag in the face of adversity – or, as
Sister Parsimonia thinks, to droop like a sunflower
under the weight of his own head.
 

St Barbara’s
 
St Barbara’s Church is the only one
Father Simeon has known where
thieves take the holy water
and leave the wine.
 
His insomnia is fuelled by his fear
of devotional candles and
what could be done in a fire.
He doesn’t need a test of faith.
 
See, he dusts the Virgin tenderly
each morning, brushes the crumbs of
earth from the altar, leaves the door
open for anyone who passes.