A Reference Point 

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“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden,

and I will give you rest.”

—Matthew 11:28

I kiss the top of my holy bible, lips against leather, along edge.

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I am writing again, and the squall has settled.

 

Into restful night.

 

Oh, the silence. The breathless, the stormless.

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The pastoral is writing itself out, like an open field.

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Did it state atonement, 
as if already steadied and preparatory? 

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(Yes, I said atonement, the second life of penance.)

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Yes, yes. 

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A promise repeated so many times
—in admonition, at times, to make stark. 

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Like stature, of holy relic.

A reminder suggested, to self and story.
 

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The Only Christmas Movie Worth Its Holiday Reruns 

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I.

 

What else can trauma do, if not etch itself in your consciousness forever? Like a permanent tattoo, that’s what it feels like. What it looks like depends on how you’re feeling that day, that afternoon, that hour. An hour is sufficient time, it seems, for a mood—like disappointment with all of yourself, then humanity, that’s what you confess—to come up from behind you, stay a while, then leave, as if it went for a midday vodka.

 

II.

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A friend told me no one should drink in the afternoon, and certainly not alone.

 

III.

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I said he hasn’t lived with himself long enough, he isn’t comfortable enough with his naked reflection, in his own skin.

 

All those stock phrases were served up, also like a random cocktail, because such cursory judgements seemed equally throwaway. It’s exhausting, you think, having to put up with every opinion needing its airing, like old clothes or smelly shoes.

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IV.

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If you fancy brandy, there’s the Tom and Jerry, which makes you think of Colin Firth in a reindeer sweater—that’s Bridget Jones’s Diary, when it was impolitely funny to see a middle-aged woman fumble about in tummy-tucking panties. We don't joke about shapewear, my aunt says, and never about plus-sized undies. But those Zellweger had on were pretty jumbo. 

 

There must have been eggnog in a party scene somewhere, which is a must in a Christmas movie. Like The Holiday, which is only great for how Jude Law played such an endearing father to his two daughters.

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V.

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You said eggnog is all-season, when someone asked whether it was a fall or winter drink. As long as they stack the brandy, empty out the cellar's stash of rum and whiskey. You said this, weeping into your drink.

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VI.

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Just an hour earlier, you were deep in contemplation, calmly seated—only that mission style chair for this purpose, far and forgotten in the kitchen corner. We could hear your words, clear as day.

 

You were asking for intercessions from a roster of saints.

 

There was St. Joseph, then as if thoughtfully sequenced, St. Jude the Apostle. St. Thérèse of Lisieux. St. Peregrine, St. Patrick, and St. Pio of Pietrelcina. St. Ignatius of Loyola, not surprising given the austerity and sacrifice. St. Francis Xavier too, who together with St. Ignatius, founded the Jesuit order—this you remind us every year, on Ash Wednesday, as well as why you took vows of poverty and chastity two decades ago. 

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VII.

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You had your crucifix in both hands, clasped tightly, held out so far in front, the long chain stretched taut. You seemed to make allowance for a petition, your voice louder as if to make public, rather than private, that thin piece of prayer, wedged as if to make room for its sudden appearance. 

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VIII.

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And hearteningly, you never forget the other Francis: St. Francis of Assisi. 

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IX.

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The only Christmas movie I’ve ever let run, on repeat, into the night is The Family Stone. It’s the perfect movie for that time of year, a reminder of how flawed every family is. And yet, all ends well because, well, family.

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Claire Danes was luminous, even next to Sarah Jessica Parker, who miraculously made such an unlikable character sympathetic. She had great chemistry with Luke Wilson, the chill sibling with his unmade hair and bed, who waltzes into town with no agenda, just all hugs.

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X.

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You see that inversion all over Austen's works, you say.

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The complexity and complication of character, how human beings never cease to perplex and unsettle us. Even if we try our hardest to let them be, leave them be, trust their good intentions.

 

Apparently, Bridget Jones’s Diary takes so much from Pride and Prejudice, it's practically a modern retelling. Mark Darcy is Fitzwilliam Darcy.

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I like the movie with Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen, I say. Someone called it the "muddy hem" version for its realism. When you've trekked across the meadows for half a day, you're drenched in sweat, your hair is a mess. And yes, the hem is dirt-brown from soil. 

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XI.

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I'd like to say that people are generally good at heart.

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It’s hard nowadays to tell which people possess that genuine kindness. But when it does happen, their inner light is hard to miss. I know very few people who have that quality, that quality I wish I had myself, for what that acknowledgement’s worth. Yes, great chemistry from the moment they met. Sarah Jessica Parker and Luke Wilson, I mean. On the steps. Out in the car. At the bar. In his bedroom, in the morning. In the living room. Back in the bedroom, when all the dust had settled.    

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XII.

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You're down to your last shot of bourbon, and still you're nowhere done with the stories of your travel. The travelling minister or the wandering minstrel, which will it be this round? You ask this, and already you've unearthed a holy card of St. Augustine, ready to ask for something else—to make all of this, all this casual talk something a bit better. Something blessed, and altogether sanctified.

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Fr. Gabriel’s Oboe
[First Version Completed Fri, 6 Nov 2020, Circa 3:00pm]
[Penultimate Version Completed Mon, 21 Jun 2021, Circa 3:30pm]

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I.

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A song, the sacred sound of sanctified sound.

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Question:     Can a song—without lyric, without words—be a prayer?

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Response:    A song is language too.

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Response:    Its own language, music as being, its own givenness.

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Response:    Sound is language is text is (when sacrosanct) prayer. 

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That qualification came from virtue, 
                       from God-fear turned God-love.

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II.

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Gabriel’s Oboe, in any form, 
no matter the player or instrument or how big the orchestral sound,
is the song of the angels.

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III.

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It is early morning, and dawn’s light is angel song too.

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The light enters my window, just as the outside lights up.

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There is no delayed conveyance.

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                                     No jammed carriage.

 

Yet with the flute and oboe, you can discern—
                      this is the distinction 
                      of what it truly means 
                                                                       to discern—
the empyrean passage, aerial, 
its own settled firmament.

 

IV.

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The wild blue yonder: 
a cliché so sublime, it doesn’t lose its newness, of character.
 

V.

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Fr. Gabriel tires easily these days, has to lean 
into each act of contrition—true and sincere contrition,
                                                           no compunction.

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By definition, compunction is fleeting, mere feeling.

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An autem prickear, now obsolete

                       —perhaps it was ill-timed, ill-suited, 
                                                       now indecorous?—
is nowhere and anywhere because the language 
has fallen into disuse; 
                          as is the current sense of things, 
                                                 of departure,
                                                 the sadness of disaffection.

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An abrupt prick of the conscience—pointed, apical, 
                                                          barbed thorn wreath.

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VI.

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Craig Hella Johnson has dramatic hands.

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Even hymns have some fixed order, strict metric patterning.
Hymns, and what employed articles of meaning.

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                                  Read: the anaphora and paradox.
                                  Read: the hyperbole, the tautology.

 

Conspirare is being shepherded, assemblage of human sounds. 

 

VII.

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Fr. Gabriel leans again, head against armoured breast,
St. Gabriel the Archangel 
                        swathing white raiment, mantle of light.

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                        Is this what Daniel, Zechariah, Mother Mary saw?

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I asked once the nature of true ethereal light: 

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                        What is the white light

                                                    of God's love,
                        its clear form and nature and property 

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                                                                and definition?

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VIII.

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Good words have become alluring again
—this, the language that speaks 
                            of worth and love and virtue.

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                            Yes, love, again and again, yet again.

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                            Only a holy love, that I ask for always,

                                                                       yes, yes, yes

                                                                       

                                                                       to the eternal yes.

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Today’s homily tells me to suspend judgement
—no gazing at the splinter, spindle in anyone’s eye
without pulling out the plank in mine,
                                   pried from the years
                                   of so many words,
                                   so many futile, fruitless words.
 
So, no words today, love tells me as warrant and counsel.

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So, here’s the music, in all its wordless, ineffable glory—

                                                       caught in mid-air,

                                                carefully attended and listened to.

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This exact moment, of morning breaking, crisp cusp of dawn.

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This must be an exercise, along with response song and daylight.

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This must be a spiritual exercise, its own temperance,

                                                                     I tell myself now.