Essence

Essence


Aleph (the First)


I am made of stories.


Crafted and freely told, borrowed and begrudging sold


I am the speech of saints and sinners

I am the words your forebears said 

I am tales told by the winners 

I am the whispers of the dead  


A misremembered hazy night 

A joke shared between kin and kith

A mystery brought into light 

People now consigned to myth 


Hebraic mountains and Mithraic caves

Sealed tombs and open graves 

Stories of sweet summers, and epic plays  

The first, the last, the end of days.




Beth (the Second)


I am made of songs.


To lure to bed and lull goodnight 

Swapped for suppers

To bring the light


The radio from a passing car 

Sea-shanties and hymns of praise 

The faintest beating of a heart 

Last year's latest dance-hall craze 


Football chants and infants' cries

The pealing and the toll of bells

Faltered prayers that fail to rise 

The chamber-choir inside a shell 


The notes that tarry after dream

The wind, the birds, the sea, the stream


Nursery rhymes and troublesome psalms

(Aleph, Beth, Gimel, Daleth)

The timbral, cymbal, pipes and drums 

The echo in my head of breath 


The hush of the crowd, the women's wails

The finite hammering of nails.




Gimel (the Third)


I am made of dirt.


I remember it


ash and earth and mulch and bone 

and chalk and tears and dung and rust 

and blood and soot and sweat and stone

and clay and ink and spit and dust 


flesh and crumbs and stains

sinews, roots and veins.




Daleth (the Fourth)


I am made of all of this 


and more:

of higher, deeper, elemental things.


of doubt and hope, mercy and rage 

of grief and hurt and charity 

of passion, and of betrayal, and grace

of faith and fear and certainty 


I am made of light and glory-




He (the Fifth)


-and of one thing beyond any story:

more true than bell or chime or gong

more melodious than song

one thing that outlasts grief and hurt

that clings to us more than any dirt 

more high, more deep, more fierce, more gentle;

more than all other elemental


and it was in the beginning 

is now 

and ever shall be

 

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