A violin sings in my ear
Softening the harsh choral German
As it proclaims certainties of
Forgiveness of sins and the impossible
Salvation of man because
Someone else had lived and died
Suffering for us, we who gave
Him ample pain.
And because
Of beauty of this musik
For long moments doubt is
Kept in abeyance, fingers keep
Time with notes, moving over
This aural rosary. “Lord! Lord!
Don’t forsake us”, must have
Been sometimes answered with
Musik instead of the usual blank
Echo of silence.
But mostly
We draw out our misery into
Melissimas. Sun is burning
Frost off spread hay, in which
A flock of robins are foraging
For worms. In winter pickings
Will be slim. I walk under hundred
Year old oaks. The great Book
Is this, the flesh that is Word,
And which lives and sings.
My hands scatter breadcrumbs
And Bach into the east wind.





My Poems