Requiem




Ash Wednesday by Mark David Johnson licensed under CC BYCropped from original, filters applied


The ashes are still on our faces,
A reminder that dust we are,
To dust we will return.
But we don’t really need ashes, do we,
On this day of wrath?
(We’ve sung the Requiem too many times.)

“I love you” I tell my son every morning,
And this morning I tell him “This is why I say it,”
As he climbs out of the car.
“Even though it is statistically improbable?”
He’s fifteen, and has not known a world
Where we don’t prepare
For the statistically improbable;
Locking our children behind doors.
“Even though.” I reply.
Because statistical improbabilities
Just mean someone else’s child
Unprotected by translucent drapery
Of thoughts and prayers.
(How many deaths before the frenzied chorus ceases?)

All music is a function of mathematics,
D minor always sounds the same because of math.
This is an immutable rule of the universe.
Alter the instruments, the voices, acoustics,
The cosmos still vibrates to D minor,
And my heart breaks to the mathematics of the Requiem.
(How long until we sing a new song?)

Christ, have mercy.

Comments

  1. Photograph of kids within the town of Gugulethu, the day after the World Cup semifinals in South Africa between Holland and Uruguay.

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