Improvisation Leads to Reverie

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photoThought Becomes Deed

Improvisations in the gold-lit nave, where I sat as of old,

Among the candle flames and greens, the paraments and carven screens

And incense-laden night, these scenes of ceremony were the means

Offsetting those surprising, bold improvisations that you told

The sanctuary’s lofty lair, and all of us who huddled there

So mesmerized by new-made tunes, to which our souls were not immune,

Since you were writing down the runes

–as you have done these many moons–

You marked this newness down with care, though improvised out of the air;

digital illustrationI bent to listen to the way that old pipe-organ seemed to say

Something, in whispers, of a time–long past, I thought–in which sublime

Rhythms and patterns like your chiming play of Tierce en Taille, were, I’m

Quite sure, shaped as a different lay, wherein another love did play,

A love now gone to other stations of the Cross than these relations,

Playing something sweet and deep across the borderlands of sleep,

Across your grand recital; sweeping through the memories I keep:

Those evening organ-conflagrations, candlelit improvisations.

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21 thoughts on “Improvisation Leads to Reverie”

    • Thanks, Eden. It was mainly decided *for* me by where I could fit in a small space in a darkish room with not much maneuvering to hover over the old harpsichord. Sometimes circumstances force a better POV than what I might have automatically chosen! (Okay, it probably *should* have been an organ manual for this poem, but I didn’t happen to have a good shot of one on hand.) 🙂

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    • Indeed I was. It was at one of the Lessons and Carols services in the last weeks, when the guest organist, the venerable Gerre Hancock, was playing a flurry of his renowned improvisations, that I was carried back some years to listening to a late beloved friend of R’s and mine who was a spectacular improvisateur but, sadly, only ours to keep until he was 40. It was grand to be reminded of him in the playing of an elder master, a little as though ‘perhaps this is what he’d have been like one day . . . ‘ A little bitter, but very sweet all the same. 🙂

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    • Dear Nors,
      You have no idea how impressed I am with anyone mastering another language, especially one as “messy” and complicated as English–let alone writing so well in it as you do!! I have only the most rudimentary knowledge of any languages other than my native English (mostly, you won’t be surprised to hear, food words!) and am still working on the whole English thing as it is. 🙂

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  7. This was beautiful! The music, the visuals…everything coming out of this poem just flew into my soul. I swear.
    You’re full of inspiration, Kathryn. Makes me wish I can get know the world a bit better.

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    • Thank you so much, HS. John has led me to a number of blogs I greatly enjoy too. I guess when he realizes how much influence he has he’s going to start charging us all a commission! 😉

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  9. What a beautiful poem. The music and the colors in the music and the words are really strong. It sings. But the meaning, keeping faith with the grand recital of love, faith, and life inside the cathedral, should not be lost inside all of the poem’s other virtues. Really nice work.

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