He has a little tin-roofed hut, dog, goat & garden
surrounded by a wind-tortured grove
of goitered macrocarpa just half an hour from the highway.
Follow the signs that start
at the roadside fruitstall.
You don't even need to hide in the ferns with
a pair of binoculars to see his dreadlocked beard all
nicotine-yellow. You can hear
him give his guided tour three times a day (over the background
noise of his transistor radio).
The cameras of the tourists from Osaka
are flashing as he poses for their photographs (his crucifix
held high). We need hermits
to constantly change so that nothing will change.
Come bearing single malt
or not at all. You should take the time
to see a genuine holy man - the last of his kind,
there will be no more (the dog
has been trained to pretend to be
a lion, lying under the table with the lamb-playing goat).
like cold perspiration & the
faint odour of nitrogen, oxygen
& carbon dioxide cling
to it as it flashes, a bright
dart tracing its fading
snailtrail down the sky.
Anything else you care to say
is pure conjecture &
won't hold up under scrutiny.