(Paul Keiffer/Unsplash)

I the East  am one arm.

I am West  the other.

My forehead is an unfurled

name. I will always be warm

with his body I bore like a mother.

My roots are the roots of the world.

Pete Green was born in 1932; he graduated from Georgetown in 1954 and the U.S. Army in 1956. He spent twelve years in a Discalced Carmelite monastery, and now lives in Irvington, New York. 

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Published in the February 2021 issue: View Contents
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