Mission Concepcion Poem by Michael Brosky

A dry wind blows through the stones of Mission Concepcion
A ghost of a bell tolls; a high hawk screeches her reply
Tumbleweeds and sounds such as these will make you feel alone
Written on scattered broken stones, our past will codify
To where have all those ladies of beads and chapel veils withdrawn?
We have need of such sanctity, for they hang a man at dawn
A coyote howls, looks up at the moon and slips away
Many souls are pulled to those lonely, abandoned places
Staring into the shadows that even reject moon ray
A lost thought? Or could it be we look for our own faces?
Because we do not have any faith or pray like we once did
Perhaps in those silent, crumbling heaps our innocence is hid
The sky empties; dawn bleeds through an ever widening wound
A point of fire; a darkness shifts in the bell tower
The Lord and the sun both rise on the saved and on the doomed
The choice is ours to release or hold onto the power
The wind whispers; not every end leaves a bone or a stone
Just another hushed ghost added to Mission Concepcion