21. NOTHING ON THE BONES BUT MEAT

NOTHING ON THE BONES BUT MEAT

'There's a lot of meat on those bones', he said -

'What a pretty lantern', in turn she said.

It's the sort of conversation you never hear,

thought I to myself. A lark in a tree, and three

monks who were walking along to the corner;

St. Luke's Church on Hudson Street in the

background and a clutch of people going by.

It was a mid-morning in some beginning of

another October again. I looked up. I saw the

old steeple straight to the sky. Instead of a

pointed top, it was short and squat.

'Bare, ruined choirs' thought I to myself.

'Where once the sweet birds sang' - somebody

answered, but they kept on walking by.