A Grander Moldau

July 7, 2005

Still looking back at old favorites. I love Smetana's "Moldau." And I love the Reservoir.

The bank clock proclaimed ninety-two degrees.
The air was so stifling as I left my apartment,
I did not doubt its integrity for a moment.

I’m here now at the reservoir;
the breeze upon my skin is cool,
so cool that I begin to question my perception.

Behind gray and glowing clouds,
I hear Your power thunder;
source is veiled, but not sound.

I wonder at reverberations
transforming earth into a timpani;
rain falls like a piccolo,
a recital of Smetana’s Moldau, only grander;
this music he could only imitate,
which no one yet has, nor ever shall
manage to duplicate.

I wonder what strange language
rain speaks to leaves in my beloved Sycamore?

I wish I could sing like that.
If only I could speak pure truth
the way these thousands of droplets
slap against the pavilion’s roof, the grass,
the thirsty ground, the once-still waters,
alive and rippling, reflecting naught except grace
sent to slake creation’s thirst.

I thirst, yet not for rain,
though something in this torrential
stillness of the mind,
where I find myself content to listen to the
praise of the sky and single-minded wisdom of rain,
brings me to deeper stillness yet.

Even as I wrap this shawl around my shoulders,
the wind bites through, reminds me of mortality,
and also of eternity.

Mystery becomes You…

And somehow,
this finitude reveals, conceals,
instructs and astounds;
leaves me speechless in divinity.