BY THE SEMINARY GATE

BY THE SEMINARY GATE
The noon bell echoes
In my yawning heart--
The Angelus!
Solemn tears roll like rosary 
Beads in an October prayer

Before the altar I
Sung the nunc dimittis---
For the Lord's voice became
The crescendo of  wedding bells ringing
In the distant skies

By the seminary gate I stand
Hearing the nuptial melodies
Die in a diminuendo

Watching stoles descend
From the heavens
But doubt has tied my hands
I cannot reach for one

Once I dream the
Skin of the celibate
But  it moults

Another, I hold hands
With Obaayaa skating a-face
Icy honey but a terrible
Heat visits

This dumsor I blame
Not on a mahama

Shall I walk fifty
More decades through the beads?
Shall I genuflect a fifty
More times before patron saints
Of vocations?

Shall I go forty days
Without victuals---
Shall I chant hymn166
A hundred and sixty six more times?

By the Seminary gate I stand
Inhaling memories of those days:
The Latin lessons
Which christened my tongue
For future chants....

The doctrines which
Opened my heart to tolerance:
Fortified against poisoning

The manual  labour
which strengthened
My soul for service
In the Lord's vineyard

By the seminary gate
I stand statued----
Should I die in this state
May I be canonised
The patron saint of confused lads

©Sarpong Kumankoma

UA-63306497-1