Bronze Medal

The winner of Third Prize in the OPrize for Poetry Contest, this year is Father Gerald Lessard, O.P.

The Dark Ages

Since Christ a thousand vacillating years
Had passed like tides of holy blood and wine.
When harsh barbari hordes ignited fears,
Shrewd abbots, then, to save their culture fine,
Assigned their monks to build thick walls of stone,
Confining friendly liberated men.
Since Christ now two millennia have shown
That still despoilers ravage cloisters when
Accusers sack the poor defiled in courts,
When plaintiffs plunder without mercy all
Religious brethren forced inside their forts
To build and bear a legal lithic wall,
A protocol protecting innocents
From devastating costly settlements.