HEAVENLY MUSIC

     THE TOWERING SONGS


at certain times    if we're graced
with a small favor from the Gods

these words we stammer    whether
joy or pain    love or awe    catch

just the momentary    aching gust
of one of Their own pure outcries

it's then we breathe a vaster being
we're raised for this soaring instant

above our tragic deafness    lifted
to that sphere where all is singing!

music so rare    so piercingly sweet
we can hardly bear it    but we do


                         ***

     Where does the most soul-piercing music come from? It's not a human invention. We're born to be antennae for signals from a higher, wiser, purer world. And when, even in spite of our smaller selves, such Heavenly Music does break through our earthbound consciousness, for this timeless instant we're lifted out of our animal mortality, into that vaster eternal sphere where all is One.

               MUSIC OF THE SPHERES

images are useless at showing the invisible

words pointless for saying what's not here

but they're all I have    so they'll have to do

without seeing emptiness    hearing silence

we go crazy    things and noises eat us alive

the inner lifeline to our Holy Source is cut

there's a Melody surpassing every sound

a Radiance too intense for incarnate eyes

a Meaning beyond the senses or the mind

Bach comes closest    Glenn Gould serenely

nails it    playing The Well-Tempered Klavier

note after note probes deeper into Mystery

yet not all the way    never to that shudder

of Boundlessness    like visions and poems

they lead us to the brink    inspire us to leap

                                  ***

                              Music Of The Spheres

     

      The music of Bach has long inspired me, and none more so than the First Prelude of The Well-tempered Klavier. So I suppose it was inevitable I would try to evoke that "Heavenly Music" in both poetry and art. First came the poem, then the drawing. Then I lugged my boom box to a local poetry open mic, where I recited my poem, to Glenn Gould's playing that Prelude--while also exhibiting my drawing! It was a marvelous multimedia trip, and one of the most fulfilling experiences of my creative and spiritual life.