Cathedral

“as some to church repair

not for the doctrine, but the music there."

“Architecture is frozen music. "

Yes, you know             yes             yes

I would have toted mortar

you would have poured             yes             ale

to cut the stone-dust

in the masons' throats;

we would have toiled our lives

away away if we had    yes

if we had known it was

for this:

not only acres of shimmer

as if every saint in the calendar

had bled red and blue on the windows

as if all the fish

had been leached of their pigments for angels

yes

not only princedoms of marble

as if all of the moonlight on all of the tarns had been frozen

as if all of the nacre in all of the oysters made pillars as

if a volcano had emptied itself of its choler

bequeathing its body to art, its shell to the carvers

yes

not only spaces and echoes

as if caverns and canyons and grottoes gaped under the vaulting

as if all of the whispers of all of the centuries lingered

yes

and not only lost wax and femurs

but as today

an organist calling up heartache and calling up thunder

then keening high

yes       yes

an oboist reaching the clerestory, ringing the windows

making Luke dance

sopranos             yes             sending eyes searching the offing for angels

and little boys

forgetting their frogs in their tiptoeing soar with the incense

yes

I would have

yes

You would

not for the doctrine but the music there

Philip Krummrich