Learning to sing the sublime.

“We knew the presence of significant things …”

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Singing Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna in the First Rehearsal

We knew the presence of significant things

when we turned the pages and the sixteenth

notes seemed worse than what happened later on.

Once you get it, you’ll love it, I promise you.

–

When we turned the pages and the sixteenth

notes bedeviled us and thrilled us, we breathed.

Once you get it, you’ll love it. I promise you,

toward the end, you will know it by heart.

–

The notes bedeviled us and thrilled us. We breathed.

It haunted us. We wouldn’t need to sing anything else.

Toward the end, you will know it by heart.

We might be good enough for words. Wonderful.

**********I

Rhythm is in the everywhere and everything.

We would not need to sing anything else. It haunted us.

We might be good enough for words, we whispered.

We knew the presence of significant things.

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Stuart Gunter’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Gravel, Deep South, Into the Void, Streetlight,  and The Madison Review, among others. Two of his earlier works were published online in Broad Street.