The Loneliest Monk: By the Book

by Richard Chess

You think you know him

by the book

he’s reading on the train,

by the party where he sits

        alone with a text on his phone

                    while others bemoan the state 

of the nation, by the glimpse

        of him, through the passenger

                    window of an electric car, 

at a bus shelter during a storm,

        undisturbed, undeterred, fat

book open on his lap.

You could check out the same title

but unless you knew

how to read, I mean

not to read but to erase

the words from the page

to uncover, reveal, or release, 

depending on your bent–forensic,

mystic–the book inside the book,

you’d never meet him there.

He’s reading the book

about which there’s much to say

but no language in which to say it.

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Richard Chess is the author of four books, most recently Love Nailed to the Doorpost (University of Tampa Press 2017). He is professor emeritus from UNC Asheville where, among other things, he directed its Center for Jewish Studies for 30 years. He serves on the boards of Yetzirah: A Hearth for Jewish Poetry and Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center.