Moon at Half Past Noon

The sun, a molten coin, dips low on Thrissur’s edge,
painting the chapel’s rusted grille with ochre, then bleeding a bruised, deep violet.

Sister Agnes, stooped and frail, watches from the cloister’s arch,
her gaze, a distant shore, where memory’s waves still crash.

Another empty cot. Just three months, then away;
leaving only a half-used tube of “Glow & Lovely” cream,
and a phone charger coiled by her cot, a secret, gray regret.

I. The Whispering Call

She remembers braiding jasmine in her mother’s sunlit yard,
her first barefoot step on cold convent tiles—so hard
to reconcile with sun-warmed mud, where the radio always played
film songs and cricket scores, a vibrant, worldly serenade.

A murmur in her spirit, felt even then, a tender plea,
to walk like white ghosts through the fever wards, serene and free.

To belong to nothing but the bell’s command, a sacred, quiet spell,
to ease the sorrow, soothe the pain, till God’s own kingdom come.

Her heart, a fledgling bird, yearned for a larger, boundless sky,
beyond the harvest fields, beneath God’s watchful eye.

II. The Weight of Devotion’s Vow

Oh, the wrenching pull, from laughter, kin, and vibrant play!

The scent of spices, family hymns, fading with each new day.

The cold, stone floors, the rising bells, before the morning light,
the endless prayers, the silent meals, through day and weary night.

Her nimble fingers ached to sow, to tend a vibrant bloom,
instead, they clasped a rosary, in shadow-laden room.

The world outside, a vibrant hum, a song she could not hear,
replaced by solemn chants, and disciplined, a whispered, quiet fear
of faltering, of yearning back for what she left behind.
Yet in the stillness, solace came, a sacred peace to find.

III. Echoes in the Twilight

Now moonlight paints the belfry, stark against the velvet sky,
and crickets hum a lullaby, as old as time gone by.

The ancient frangipani, heavy with its perfume sweet,
sheds petals on the path where once so many pious feet
trod softly. Sisterhood, a tide that ebbs with every year,
the younger ones, like startled birds, now flee the quiet here.

She saw the girl’s Instagram, a window to a distant sheen—
reels of Dubai skydiving, Korean skincare, a swirling, iced coffee dream.

“I can’t breathe,” she’d written, and Agnes, in her quiet grace,
understood: the walls here tighten, not a father’s fierce embrace,
but slowly, like old vines on wells, binding, holding deep.
Can silent vows still resonate when noise is all around, asleep
to quiet grace? Can selfless love take root where fleeting joys are found?

IV. The Flicker and the Fading

4 AM. The bell still rings, but fewer feet now shuffle toward chapel’s door.
Agnes’ knees crack like firewood, on the same worn chapel floor.

Here, fifty years ago, she pressed her forehead, breathing in the scent
of disinfectant, faint sweat of terrified girls, their young lives heaven-sent
in this surrender. Outside, a bike revs, a boy plays Vijay loud and clear,
the bass thudding against the convent wall, a heartbeat sisters learned to fear,
or gently quell. The altar lamp needs oil, its wick begins to sputter,
painting shadows that seemed to stir with the old cook
who hid extra bananas in her apron, with the novice who fled
to marry that taxi driver in ’98.

Agnes blows out the flame. Somewhere beyond the rusted grille,
a phone screen lights a young face, bright against the night so still—
watching makeup tutorials, a travel vlogger’s laughter, light and free,
in Barcelona’s cafe, a world beyond this sanctity.

The night smells of wet earth. Of something growing, tender, fresh, and new.
Of something rotting, ancient, fading, turning a silent hue.
The difference matters less now, in the stillness of her dark,
only the heart’s true rhythm, leaving its enduring mark.