Thought 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;

I 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.