Around the church orbits monastic decay,
the beds and roses of his care
crumbling away
around him
as the sun glints on his shell coated belt
and baseball cap.

Circling him, the instruments of his musical life
are lain out neatly on his bed,
his old monk's room itself
a sea of different hats
and hand made flutes.

The kittens he cares for
prance around the church,
chasing shadows and ghosts
reflecting on the last pieces of fresco
whose peelings scale the walls
between the painted-on stone blocks
and marbling.
 

"My wife - kaput!"
he says
and days now spent in hope
some new "big mama" will pass by
and drive him forth and back to town.

Old Mr. Minas guards this ancient tomb
from 1427 on, and relishes the barricaded door
and its letterbox above 
through which would pour
boiling oil
waiting for some medival postman's knock.

There I was, lost looking for some mines
and finding
this old man's head appearing 
from the vacant building's window top
peering down
at me, in the midday sun.
 

"Stupid fuckin' caves easy to fuckin' find"
he says,
showing me a photo
of a ruin 
back down the dry river bed 
an even more dillapidated shrine
where once were mined
other legends of Parian marble gold.