From the steeple

just yesterday I found myself
thinking again
of this emptyless Emptiness
eating away at my soul
petrifying my heart
in the end, what’s to be lived
but an endless death
if not moment after moment
we meet in what is essentially Your breath?

just yesterday I found myself
thinking again
thinking – again!
does it ever cease to please
myself, lost in thought –
where is God in it all?
mind you
explain the sadness

just yesterday I found myself
bound by shackles of shame
failing to reach,
falling
beneath the sea
green rust copper weeds
blackened fruit, lost seeds
God, to be free!

and on this day I’ll find myself
wanting to dissolve
wanting to dissolve the iron
bars of assumed identity
– the irony of it all!
exhausted from your journey
you will give up, gladly
the confines of your mistaken identity

And on that day I found myself
found my Self
in a brilliant sky
clarions resounding confidently
from the steeple

NY April 2000

[Text for bass soloist, written for the composition for large SATB chorus, bass soloist, piano and soprano saxophone, commissioned by Holy Apostles Community Chorus and performed in 2000, “Song of Praise”]