David Radavich

Meteora

I’ve often wondered how monks
can live atop mountains,
never coming down.

Now women have joined them
in separate houses, perched
on mountains that jut out impossibly
like ancient eyeteeth,

just the miracles
they look to be beyond
human knowing or doing,

impossibly intricate painting
and stones now crowded with tourists
who can’t quite climb the faith

of these contemplators
yet buy their crosses, stare
at icons, stand back with cameras
trying to frame God

so high, so remote

we feel faint climbing
down, massaging our knees,
leaving all those colors

in busses headed
to the flat known world.

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