I

Crystal Liturgy

Here, in the abyss,
where song-birds pluck their notes
and send them, feather-light,
floating through the air,
here, you’ll find no vale of tears,
no fears of shadow-hawks,
for all blackness is abandoned
in the interests of sunlight and song.

Here, the crystal liturgy surges,
upwards from the rejoicing heart,
ever upwards, into the realms of light,
where color and sound alike
brim over with the joy that, yes,
brings release to head and heart.

Here, seven-stringed rainbows reign,
the everlasting harp is tuned and plucked,
and an eternity of music cements
the foundations of earth and sky.

Here, the master musician conducts
his celestial choir, their voices rising,
higher and higher, until they reach
the highest sphere, and song and voice
inspire, then expire, passing from our eyes
and ears into unbounded realms of light.

Here, the seven trumpets will sound
their furious dance, a dance that will announce
the end of this singer, the end of his song,
but never the end of song itself.

Commentary:

Crystal Liturgy is the first poem in the poetry sequence Septets for the End of Time. I will start placing these poems here and you can follow the sequence as it evolves. It consists of 56 poems – seven septets and a coda.

A Note for Readers

Olivier Messiaen is one of my favorite composers. I purchased his Quatuor pour la fin du temps / Quartet for the End of Time in Rimouski, PQ, in 1982 while driving around the Gaspé Peninsula. I was fascinated both by the music and by the words that headed each section. I should note that I have always enjoyed ekphrasis, the verbal description of visual works of art. With Messiaen, I tried to recreate not only the thoughts and images generated in me by his music, but the spaces and repetitions that come from light and dark sounds and birdsong caught in the intervals between notes. This was a new sphere of experimental writing for me and while composing I played first the Quatuor pour la fins du temps / Quartet for the End of Time, then Éclairs sur l’au-delà/ Lightning above the Beyond, and finally Petites esquisses d’oiseaux / Little Sketches of Birds. What I tried to capture came from within my own mind, but the metaphors and images were inspired by listening to Messiaen’s music.