A CEO in Assisi

"...a few flowers at his feet and above him the stars..." -Victor HugoThe cloister walk:A luxury of selflessness for whichI really haven't the time.This would never hold in my country, anyway-Women caged slenderly by the vows of noble youthOr stiff-backed parentage, boundTo the slow circling of the square;Courtyard, courtyard, courtyard, death.But it's pretty enough-worth a few photos, thoughThe wrinkling middle-dipped paths lump under loafers,Slowing me down. They trace shadow and light, a lifeIn thirty steps of cobble round an iron-winched well.The young blush has faded from deep-rooted blooms.I do not understand these faceless Clares,Their nowhere dreams, the romancing of the silence,Xeroxed days stepping off into an infinityNot even seen, from this veil-holy prison.It's worse than zoos, museums-the opacity.Still it is pretty. If I ever have a moment free,I'll frame under the glass their four-cornered existenceAnd (between memos) from a sky-iced office windowBe free to wonder where they send their souls, enjoyEnlightenment and screen-star skirts againstThis picture: walls, well-hole, flowersCorked tight by horizonless sky.