All Saints Convent:
In an indifferent world,
Detached from the sands of time,
Your house stands on a rock
And gathers the faceless ones
Around a table
Where the undeserving
Are honored guests.

We come from darkness,
Bring our hungers and thirsts.
We join you, kneel at dawn
Under a single, amber light,
no more strangers,
But sisters in the Silence
Who speaks us all.
— A Poem by Bonnie Thurston from her new book, Practicing Silence