Real Monk

The modern world gets on at Embankment
buzzing with their mobile phones, bright
fashions, fast food. And a monk.
Double check. G.C.S.E. textbook example:

bald, brown robes, full ginger beard
- have you not heard of scissors?-
wooden cross bouncing off his chest,
rosary beads on his belt, bible in hand.

This is Theatreland. He's probably a performer.
I wait for a burst of song, a hymn perhaps,
and then the dreaded request for change,
which we all ignore, heads weighed down with shame.
 
We rattle under the ancient Thames.
I'm always amazed to think: all that water above.
The monk is unmoved. Technology
is a noisy, nasty, foreign world to him.

At Waterloo he ignores the bustle,
the stress; stands proud on the escalator,
not noticing hundreds staring at him. I lose
him in the scrum for a train to Epsom.

I am left with questions.
What train is the monk catching?
Why was he in London? An act
of penitence? A day trip among the sinful?

He was a real monk. Get over it.