– Benedictine Abbey
                       Collegeville, Minn. (1996)

Inviting fire,

         the prairie grass
         sizzles in the wind,
         dances from match-
         stick dry to ash to
         scatter seeds now
         dormant with
         their own grand
         intentions of survival
         as seven monks
         labor over
         long-handled
         hoes & shovels,
         wary, silent, deftly
         circling in, armed with
         prayer & moth-eaten army
         blankets draped over
         their shoulders to
         hem in the hiss,
         the flame’s
         seductive pull,

a siren’s call.

Terry Savoie is a retired teacher, husband, father and grandfather. He received his education at the University of Iowa and has had poems published in the past 35 years in APR, Ploughshares, The American Journal of Poetry, North American Review, America and other journals.