Adrian and Julian

Each one of them had one good eye,
and 1 + 1 made 2,
the way the twins lived anyway
in 1942

when both of them had tried to join
an almost holy war
but chose instead a life of prayer
and wore the uniform

of simple brown Franciscan cloth
unlike their smarter frères
who didn't dress like mendicants,
discharging their affairs

to teach devoted postulants
"I think therefore I am"
but joked two seminarians
bore medieval phlegm

because they couldn't comprehend
the Blessed Trinity
or Summa Theologica,
much less infinity,

since Adrian and Julian
who never earned degrees
spoke mostly monosyllables
like yes or no or please.

So one became chauffeur for them,
the other sacristan
when not the abbott's janitor,
valet, or handyman.

Nor would the abbott let them row
the boat they built for fun,
"for vows included poverty
until the battle's won"

he reprimanded both the twins
who knew obedience
and charity towards everyone
forgave malevolence

but vowed to have their pennies spent
on Sundays after Lent
to sin if you could call it that
on one banana split

they shared when half the village came
to see the smiling grace
in simple joy of come what may
with syrup on each face,

but by the new millennium
they'd seen enough of life
that Julian succumbed one day
and Adrian that night.

Their other worldly colleagues came
to honor both the twins
a summer's day as dawn began
while two played violins

and two sang what Cat Stevens sang
when blackbird like first bird
spoke when first the morning broke
and song sprang from the Word.