The baritones and tenors simply will not sing.
My Wurlitzer’s mistakes of hand sound very loud.
Their heads lean either down (but are not bowed)
or back (but not in ecstasy of gaze upon the Lord).
The sky’s rise wavers dusk before the evening food.
(Something about that semi-light distracts:
Is it rays off lemons blunted, mulled? Ascent
of walnut smoke? Dried duffels of purple grapes?
Seedpods rattling on a catalpa tree? Sky candlelight?)
Now won’t their senses sing to them? The mission
heavens lighten one degree with corner lamps.
Someplace—a ceilinged sermon—to faint into, to live
cut out for. Is each man a solo, solitary? Or surrounded
by a season’s end of the sloppiest best-of-friends?
Who’ll dare to mouth a hymn? Forgive—
my favorite key’s D flat. By devotion
of a sexton the garden sleeping grounds
pacify, embraced by vines and trees.
Earth, our deluxe van, keeps its route around the sun.
Urine runs. One brother dawns or pales. I play
by ear for all the stumbling voices still to hear.
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