Monthly Archives: April 2026

Trappist Woods
Before Vigils
 
Can you take the leap of faith
that this deer’s moonlit eyes are God?
Otherwise, how many dark nights will find you here, 
wandering woods between the hermitage 
and monastery at four a.m., praying 
for what’s right in front of you?
This whitetail’s two wide-open answers 
to Saint Benedict’s question: What do you seek? 
become obvious, once you realize 
there’s nothing out there to find 
that isn’t already God, already You.
And that includes the nightjar, 
and the Eastern Whip-poor-will.

What to do, then? —when, for so long, 
we’ve gotten it so wrong— is a dilemma,
our I-think-therefore-I-am,
subject-needs-an-object world
eclipsing our moon-wide-illumined eyes 
from seeing deer, Deity, and planet 
as ourselves.

Contemplative life—
hard to describe really, except as what it isn’t: 
Via Negativa. Negative Way. What can be said, 
spelled, spoken, named: too small to be ineffable.
No two-ness, either. Flower not foreign to fragrance. 
Star not separate from shine. Humanity 
undivided from Divinity. 

What you want, what you’re after is pond: 
a natural contemplative, reflecting what is. 
Julian’s hazelnut vision too, perhaps, all creation 
like a kernel, oned, held, loved, inside Mystery.
Wholly here. Holy Now. Holy Darkness. 
Unknowing transcending certainty. 
No burning bush, no bell. Only heaven 
giving you stars to count on, owl-song 
for your compass crooning through trees. 
Your life, your love planted
in understory-cloisters so ancient, 
what but Silence could pronounce 
the wordless vows of stability 
centuries take to root here?



Julian’s hazelnut vision: Described in her book, Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich (1342-1416 CE).
oned (or oneing): Julian’s terms for a process that leads to profound oneness, beyond mere intimacy, with the Divine.
vows of stability: Trappist (Cistercian) monks take a vow of stability to the community/place in which they live.

A 2026 Pushcart nominee, Daniel Skach-Mills’s poems have appeared in numerous publications, including: Pensive Journal, The Christian Century, Sojourners, and Sufi (Featured Poet). His book, The Hut Beneath the Pine: Tea Poems was a 2012 Oregon Book Award finalist. A former Trappist monk, Daniel lives with his husband in Portland, Oregon, where he served fifteen years as a docent for Lan Su Chinese Garden. He was diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer in 2024.

Music for Tenebrae

shadows of a ceremony - 
rarely enacted - haunt the culture 
seamless robe of balanced voices
moving down the diatonic stair 

winds and birdsong all fall silent 
skies leach their colour westward
the nasal plangency – astringent 
signifies exquisite pain


a solitary bird is flying 
fast and high against the blue
whether some herald of deliverance 
or the fell hawk coming for a lamb

pick up a corner of the veil  
if there is blood it should be washed
not with your tears but rather with 
the grace of mordent harmonies

winter takes toll on chantry walls
after the rinsing of spring showers
snails move in damp grass slick
as sweet agonies of passiontide


entering that velvet darkness where
the final candle burns - a black shape 
like a wing - high up a pillar 
under the clerestory beats 

on the dim-lit belly of pale stone
moving against a harmony
of soaring voices – yet dispersing
as their final chord resolves

Since retiring from parish ministry, Tony Lucas continues with writing and spiritual direction. His poetry has appeared widely, on both sides of the Atlantic and he is working on a new collection, to add to those previously published by Stride and Stairwell Books.