Pilgrim visits Julian of Norwich,
April 1410

Through a tight window, Julian
crouches over a bit of handwork.
Known for going nowhere
she has redefined the words home,
here, prison, exile. Your eye,
single, beholds her face. Her eye
never leaves her needle. 
Unlike you, she knows where
she will die. She breathes eats
sleeps a seamless meditation. 

Her chair is every chair,
her bed, every bed, her cell, 
a wilderness, the first garden,
a temple of the spirit, the city
of God. She sets her face to go
nowhere. 

Forever chaste, she greets you
like her own firstborn, Confesses
to you, as to a priest, that sometimes
shuffling about her tiny cell
she forgets where she is,
where she’s going,
who she even is.