Los Angeles, Costa Rica
March 16, 2012; revised November 23, 2015
to Virgita and her congregation
Listen. Echoes intermingle here
on the inside of a sweet instrument
projecting love with Latin flair,
where hearing is whole body and fuego
is a dance not confined to Domingo,
where decibels carry fevered joy deep
into small town nights.
Staccato hammer, hum of weld
that build and bind the world outside
are amplified within these walls
from tile floor to high eves and hiding
bats, they bounce back through,
they permeate the empty rows
of wooden pews.
The world intrudes on sacred space,
its hardened tones accentuate
the soft voice that weaves a world
of wise fools who bind the blessed
earth and sky with bold themes
and threads of hope
While high above, inside each pause
between rude strokes and spoken
words, bright notes proclaim to those
who hear what gospel truth wild
birds can sing.
And some hear more – a living spring
wells up from nothing pouring forth
between the notes with cleansing
uncontained by culture, unconstrained
by earnest creed.
So dance my love with fire and joy:
the emptiness, awash with angels, echoes
silent thoughts of God. Just listen, love
with body, soul and mind of faith
to hear its roar.
on the inside of a sweet instrument
projecting love with Latin flair,
where hearing is whole body and fuego
is a dance not confined to Domingo,
where decibels carry fevered joy deep
into small town nights.
Staccato hammer, hum of weld
that build and bind the world outside
are amplified within these walls
from tile floor to high eves and hiding
bats, they bounce back through,
they permeate the empty rows
of wooden pews.
The world intrudes on sacred space,
its hardened tones accentuate
the soft voice that weaves a world
of wise fools who bind the blessed
earth and sky with bold themes
and threads of hope
While high above, inside each pause
between rude strokes and spoken
words, bright notes proclaim to those
who hear what gospel truth wild
birds can sing.
And some hear more – a living spring
wells up from nothing pouring forth
between the notes with cleansing
uncontained by culture, unconstrained
by earnest creed.
So dance my love with fire and joy:
the emptiness, awash with angels, echoes
silent thoughts of God. Just listen, love
with body, soul and mind of faith
to hear its roar.
Other poems from Costa Rica:
You brought me there. I could hear and see. Reminded me of Psalm 36:5-12
ReplyDeleteYour loving-kindness, O Lord, extends to the heavens, Your faithfulness, reaches to the skies.
Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judgments are like a great deep.
O Lord, You preserve man and beast.
How precious is Your loving-kindness, O God! And the children of men take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They drink their fill of the abundance of your house; and you give them to drink of the river of Your delights.
For with You is the fountain of life; In Your light we see light.
O continue Your loving-kindness to those who know You. And Your righteousness to the upright in heart.
Let not the foot of pride come upon me, and let not the hand of the wicked drive me away. There the doers of iniquity have fallen; They have been thrust down and cannot rise.
There's a wonderful interplay between the hope of spiritual lightness and the intruding physical world in this, Bob. The upward movement toward the divine expressed in light and sound is a nicely layered effect culminating in the surprising "roar" of emptiness at end -- and "what gospel truth / wild birds can sing" is as close to Yeats (and Merton, too) as I've read in a long time. Nicely done.
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